The Black Friar

by S. G. MacLean

  The bell of St Katharine Coleman’s struck seven – a little time yet until she need rise, and yet curiosity got the better of her. She swung her feet over the side of the bed and found the footstool. Beside it were her favourite red velvet slippers, which she put on for fear of splinters. She would visit Price at the New Exchange to consult on the acquisition of a Turkish carpet. Her mother had disapproved of such ostentation, but Anne Winter reasoned that as no one’s feet but her own would touch this carpet, little harm or wear would ever come to it. Besides, she did not need her dead mother’s permission, nor that of any other. A favoured woollen shawl around her, she walked to the window, blew her warm breath on the glass, wiped it with the corner of the shawl and looked down onto Crutched Friars.

  She smiled as she watched the poor fellow across the road, affecting to be a vendor of gingerbreads and the like, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands to get warm. She would have the cook send him over a warm drink in an hour or so, a well-spiced caudle, to cheer him and help him keep out the cold. He was a new watcher, of course. She had known, when she had sketched them out for Seeker, that that was the last she would see of those particular informers. Well, other than Marvell, but Marvell was different. She wondered, though, what had become of the scarred, bearded one it had taken her a little longer to spot, and who had not appeared for some weeks now, long before Seeker had made the others vanish. She must remember to ask Marvell about him later.

  Anne Winter turned away from the window and pulled the silk sash that hung by her bed. It was time to dress, to assume her role for the day.

  *

  Andrew Marvell could feel the resentment seething within him. On a day such as today, when secretaries and under-secretaries from everywhere in the department were leading raids on printers and dissidents throughout the city, each with a troop of soldiers buoying him along, or taking part in the interrogation of those already under arrest, Seeker was still insisting that he should attend Anne Winter’s salon, in the company of that old Royalist devil William Davenant. Even the useless Bridlington was being permitted to observe and note the interrogations – his uncle, the major-general, no doubt having intervened on his behalf – while he, Marvell, was to take coffee on stiff-backed chairs in some wealthy widow’s parlour and pretend amusement at Davenant’s supposed wit. What information Seeker expected to be obtained from the episode, Marvell was at a loss to imagine.

  ‘What I expect to obtain from the exercise,’ Seeker had rumbled when Marvell had injudiciously complained of his plight to another clerk, not realising Seeker was still in the vicinity, ‘is intelligence on the interiors of Anne Winter’s house, and of her household. In particular, anything you might glean on the past and present purposes of the Rat would be of use. I wish to know what she and Davenant talk of and do not talk of, whether any others present make any slip or reference whatsoever regarding travel plans or contacts with known suspects at home or abroad. Do I need to teach you your trade, Mr Marvell?’

  ‘N-no,’ stuttered an alabaster Marvell. ‘It is just that Lady Anne already knows I am in the pay of Mr Thurloe.’

  ‘She also knows you practise poetry, and will therefore be more inclined to let you over her door than an unknown face. Yes, she knows what you are about, but there might be something to be gleaned in how she tries to deceive you, and as for the rest, keep your eyes and your ears open. Of course, you might prefer to take Marcus Bridlington’s place in the messengers’ office.’

  At this Marvell drew himself up to the full height of his indignation. ‘That will not be necessary, Captain Seeker, I can assure you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Seeker, putting on his helmet and calling Proctor after him. ‘I will receive your report tonight.’

  *

  Almost arrived at Crutched Friars, Marvell examined his feet; the walk through the city had rendered his best boots as grimy as they had been before he had cleaned them that morning in his small lodging at Petty France. Milton had found it for him at a very reasonable rent, not easy to be had in that pleasant part of Westminster, with its proximity to St James’s Park and Pall Mall. The proximity to Milton, and Milton’s encouraging patronage, had opened the way for him into the many households where men of letters and worldly experience were wont to gather – even Lady Ranelagh had taken notice of him and complimented him on his verse. Some of the most powerful men in the Commonwealth trusted him to tutor their children and wards, and the Lord Protector himself had begun to call upon his literary gifts. Marvell was gratified, and much engaged, of course, but it was in service at Whitehall, in the offices of state that he wished to excel, and the patronage of artistic friends could only take him so far.

  This too, the ageing, blind Latin Secretary, saw very clearly. ‘And you will always be near to hand for Whitehall,’ Milton had said, ‘should you be wanted at short notice by Secretary Thurloe’s office.’

  And yet today, Marvell thundered to himself all the long way from Pall Mall to Aldgate, when every other agent and officer of the Protectorate seemed to be engaged upon flushing out the last of the Levellers, the Fifth Monarchists, and every other radical suspected of imminent insurrection, here he was, making his way to the salon of a notorious Royalist widow? Much good would that do him. That the inveterately duplicitous old rogue of a playwright, Davenant, was to be his companion would hardly improve matters. Marvell felt he was going to Anne Winter’s house on Crutched Friars to be cleverly made fun of, and he was not sure he saw the point of the exercise, whatever Seeker might think. He was on the edges, again. But Marvell would place himself at the centre, one day – he was determined on that. By the time he reached the green door with the brass crest knocker, his determination had imbued him with a demeanour primed for indignation. Fully prepared to give vent to it, he rapped firmly three times upon the door.

  *

  ‘That’ll be him,’ said the Rat. ‘You know him?’

  Gabriel nodded his head wordlessly. Grace had warned him about his manners a hundred times, Samuel about not getting ‘inveigled’ into wrong ideas by ‘whatever company she keeps’, and they had both warned him to steer clear of the Rat. It was to be understood, and in a manner that required no explanation, that the Rat was dangerous. Gabriel looked at him as they moved almost silently about one another in the kitchen of Anne Winter’s house. This man she called Richard was small, skinny, a bit like Samuel must have been to look at, forty years since. His face was sharp, the nose pointed and the eyes, black as the bottom of the best pot, small and piercing. His sandy hair might have been chewed rather than cut, and he was neither bearded nor clean-shaven, a chin that looked like he might use it to scrape rust off a knife. But there was no rust on Richard’s knife. It gleamed in the one shaft of late morning sun that had found its way through the small back window to the kitchen of Anne Winter’s house.

  The man saw Gabriel’s interest. ‘Stiletto,’ he said slowly. ‘Italian.’ He flicked his right wrist and held the knife out, handle on his palm, point towards Gabriel. ‘You ever meet an Italian with one of these in his hand and it’s already too late. You remember that. Now, get on with brewing that black muck, and I’ll go up and let her ladyship’s guests in.’

  Gabriel was looking at the Rat’s boot, into which he had just secreted the stiletto. The Rat smiled, suddenly amused. Gabriel had thought his teeth would be yellow, but they were not: they were white, very white, and sharp. ‘Don’t worry, boy, I’m not going to kill this Mr Marvell with it.’ He leaned a little closer towards him. ‘You only kill people who matter, and even then only when something goes wrong. It’s only careless people do a lot of killing. I don’t plan to kill anyone with this, today. I’ll keep it by me though, just in case.’

  *

  In spite of himself, it did not take long until Marvell began to find himself at ease in Anne Winter’s house. His natural curiosity to see the inside of this house was winning out over his resentment at having been sent there. To his surprise and delight, the composer Henry Lawes was i
n attendance, as well as the old playwright Davenant.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ exclaimed the florid-faced, ruinously- nosed Davenant. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you at last! John Milton has told me much of your talents.’

  ‘Mr Milton is too kind.’

  At this Davenant roared with laughter, Lawes’s eyes widened and Anne Winter smiled. In response to the confusion that must have shown on Marvell’s face, she said, ‘You must excuse Sir William, Mr Marvell, but it is not often that even his friends hear Milton described as kind. But tell me, how do you enjoy your work for Mr Thurloe?’

  Marvell had heard that Lady Anne was not one to abide by convention, but he had not expected her to begin by being quite so direct. His surprise must have shown on his face.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Marvell, but you must know that I am greatly concerned with the welfare of a young girl who was in my service and a few weeks ago disappeared from my care. I had great hopes Mr Thurloe’s agents might have uncovered something in the course of their work, or Captain Seeker even.’

  The mention of Seeker snapped Marvell right back to the reality of his situation.

  ‘It is unfortunate, your ladyship, but I have heard nothing. And, I am . . . not quite at liberty to discuss these . . . that is, I am generally employed as a tutor to the sons of gentlemen. I am only in London while my current charge recuperates . . .’

  Disappointed hope retreated reluctantly from Lady Anne’s eyes, but then she smiled in such a way that Marvell felt he and the others were being gathered up in a circle of light. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘and it is not long since you were tutor to Lord Fairfax’s daughter at Nun Appleton, in your native Yorkshire, is that not so?’

  ‘A-hum, yes, your ladyship,’ said Marvell, somewhat perplexed by this sudden change in the direction of questioning.

  ‘Fairfax,’ echoed Davenant. ‘Now, he is a gentleman, and Nun Appleton, they tell me, a perfect delight.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ stammered Marvell.

  ‘I have heard,’ said Lady Winter, ‘that you have written some poems on the place yourself. It would delight us all to hear them.’

  Step by step, although Marvell was made the focus of all their attention, he felt he was being led down an old path against his will. Old poems of his were cited from his Royalist days, cast up to him until he burned with humiliation. As he began to make noises that he would, after all, be unable to tarry any longer, Davenant put out a hand to stay him – they were not finished with him.

  ‘And yet,’ said the playwright, ‘we have all had to make our accommodations with this new regime, every one of us, and that we must live with as our conscience dictates. But you should know, should you ever come to regret your abandonment of those you formerly allied yourself to, or the King’s cause, you will not lack friends here.’

  Marvell felt his heart might drop through his stomach, that the room might begin to spin on some unseen axis. People did not say such things to a member of Thurloe’s Secretariat, be he ever so lowly. What did it say of him, that here today Davenant had said it to him? To say nothing of what it suggested about the loyalties of Henry Lawes, although Lawes, he could not help but notice, appeared mortified. Lady Anne watched Marvell carefully a moment without saying anything, and then pulled on the heavy embroidered sash by the chimney. ‘Enough of such melancholy things. We shall take our coffee now – I have it from the best coffee house in London. Do you enjoy coffee, Mr Marvell?’

  *

  In the kitchen, Gabriel carefully set out upon a tray the four blue porcelain finians, the most delicate coffee cups he had ever touched, that Lady Winter had shown to him earlier. He had been terrified at first to go near them – in Kent’s, only Grace ever handled anything nearly so fine; not even Samuel would trust himself not to break such crockery.

  ‘Your Mr Tavener’s wife found them for me, from a Dutch friend whose husband trades to Java, and knows the markets there. Are they not lovely?’

  Gabriel had been blunt. ‘They are too lovely, your ladyship. I have seen Mr Marvell, and he has clumsy hands – I would not let him near those good cups, and Sir William is an out and out— Well,’ he’d corrected himself, ‘Samuel says he is sometimes not sober.’

  Lady Anne had smiled. ‘More cups are easy to be had, Gabriel, but friends perhaps not so. Sir William is a good friend to me, and I hope Mr Marvell might become one. Your thoughtfulness and good sense does you credit, though, and should one of these fine cups get broken, I promise you I will take care to use less fine ones the next time.’

  Gabriel had nodded, unconvinced, but had not argued further in defence of the cups. From the store cupboard next to the Rat’s room he had then taken some pieces of preserved ginger, some ground cocoa and a cinnamon stick. With a palette knife he had scraped grains from the sugar loaf into a small bowl. As he’d been leaving the storeroom with his small stock of treasures, he’d happened to see through the gap between door and frame where a breeze from the garden had blown it open slightly. He’d glimpsed the Rat’s hands, working strangely at the collar of a coat he had never see him wear, and, fearful of drawing further attention on himself, had hurried back to the kitchen.

  Lady Anne’s good parlour was two floors up, Gabriel knew that much. He’d nothing to do to the coffee now but let it brew. When the Rat left a second time, with a bucket of coals to take up for the fire in the parlour, Gabriel thought of what Seeker had said about keeping his eyes and ears open in this house. He looked around; there wasn’t much to see in the kitchen that wouldn’t normally be there, for all that Gabriel knew of kitchens in rich women’s houses – better-quality dishes, newer implements, a larger scrubbed table perhaps. Nothing worth telling the Seeker of. But when the Rat had come back down the stairway into the kitchen, after letting Marvell and Davenant in and showing them to Lady Anne’s parlour, he’d had a rolled-up piece of paper in his hand, and without speaking to Gabriel had gone directly to his room. A moment later he’d come back out of the room, and no sign of the piece of paper.

  Hardly thinking what he was doing, Gabriel now went swiftly down the narrow corridor and turned the handle. The click as the door opened sounded to him as if it must have reverberated through the house. Gabriel slipped quickly in and looked around him; there was little to see: two sacks of flour, a jar of preserved fruits the very sight of which made Gabriel’s mouth water, a stick and a shovel. In one corner was a musket, in a wooden box on the wall-shelf a pair of pistols. On the floor was a simple straw pallet and a woollen blanket, beside it another roll, of clothing. On a hook on the wall by the bed hung the coat Gabriel had seen the Rat working at earlier. It was of foreign design – such as made Samuel spit on the street if he happened to see anyone pass by wearing one. There was a small empty leather bag, but no chest, no book or journal or papers lying anywhere. And yet Gabriel knew he had seen the Rat come in here with a piece of paper in his hand, and come out again without it. If he had not hidden it on his person, it was in here somewhere. Gabriel tried the pockets of the foreign coat: nothing; but then he noticed the collar, and remembered the Rat’s fingers working at it. It did not look quite right. He ran his hand under it and found an opening, as big as his finger. With a little work he brought out the piece of paper folded and hidden inside. He opened it carefully but could make little sense of what he saw. The paper was of better quality than Gabriel was used to seeing in the myriad pamphlets that seemed to float from all the printers by St Paul’s to the door of Kent’s coffee house, and there was the design of some sort of bow or knot pressed into it. There were no words on it, just a roughly drawn map – a town, such as a child might hastily draw, then a wavering line out towards a piece of coastline that looked like a fist with a thumb sticking out. It looked like a piece of foolishness, but Gabriel knew it could not be foolishness, or the Rat would never have hidden it away as he had done. As he contemplated the strange sketch, he suddenly heard above him the creak of the door that led to the kitchen stairs. He hastily folded the small map again and repl
aced it where he had found it. He was standing over his coffee pot again, his heart hammering, when the Rat walked carelessly back into the kitchen.

  ‘They’re wanting you up there now. And you’ve to take that tray of sweetmeats with you too. Well,’ mused the Rat, lifting a ball of marzipan that had been coloured and shaped to make an apple, and popping it into his own mouth, ‘all but this one.’ He laughed and swung jauntily out of the kitchen and down the corridor to his room. By the time Gabriel returned from serving the coffee and sweetmeats to Lady Anne and her guests, the door to the small room at the end of the corridor was wide open, the Rat gone and his bag, pistols and coat with him.

  Eighteen

  Elias Ellingworth’s Journal

  It had been the early hours of the morning by the time Seeker had finished processing the prisoners he had taken from Gethsemane. Other known Fifth Monarchists and Leveller agitators had been taken elsewhere in the city and outside it – Christopher Feake, Vavasor Powell, John Spittlehouse and others were under lock and key with Goodwill Crowe. The prisons of London were full – Newgate, Ludgate, the Fleet, and across the river, the Marshalsea and the Clink had been pressed into use. Major-General Thomas Harrison and some others of especial prominence would be in the Tower by now, having resisted Cromwell’s heartfelt pleas to make their peace with the Protectorate, to return to the loving fold of their erstwhile brother-in-arms. Men and women of suspect associations had been parcelled up amongst places of security all over London. Elizabeth Crowe had still been declaiming as they’d thrown her into the Bridewell, crying out to God one moment, claiming kinship with Daniel in the lions’ den, and demanding that her daughter be brought to her the next. Patience Crowe was yet to be found, Goodwill, not seeming greatly perturbed, had denied any knowledge of where she might be, and Seeker was resolved to leave Bridewell to work its charms on her mother a while before going to interrogate her – he had more pressing matters to attend to.