Blood's Game

by Angus Donald

  Once safely out of sight, he paused for a moment to take stock, then plunged into a wide yard off the main thoroughfare tucked around the back of the tavern where a pair of horses were tied up to the rail and a short bald man in a leather jerkin was brushing the mud from their coats. He touched the silver wolf’s head of his cane to his hat at the startled ostler, gave him a wide easy smile, and walked on past without a word. A dozen steps later he pushed open the half door of a horse stall and called out: ‘Up and at ’em, boys. Rise and shine. Barbarians at the gate!’

  Two men, one small with a scarred face and a squint in his left eye, the other a great shaven-headed lump of bone, muscle and blubber half a head taller even than Blood, emerged from separate mounds of hay brushing strands from their sleep-creased faces.

  ‘Ormonde’s boy got wind of us somehow,’ said Blood, reaching out a hand to the smaller of the two, a Yorkshire man who called himself William Hunt, hauling him upright. ‘Some grubby little informer, I have no doubt, looking to earn a shilling or two. So, no time to dally.’

  The other man, Joshua Parrot by name, lumbered past Blood and peered out of the open half of the stable door.

  He said, ‘What about the girl?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be just fine. Ormonde might give her a lick or two, but Jenny can stand that; he won’t be too savage. The old fool thinks he’s in love with her. Jen will have him eating out of her hand by dinnertime.’

  A moment later, Blood poked his head around the door of the stables. The ostler was gone. The muddy street was empty but for a burly fellow slowly rolling a vast barrel of beer towards the tavern’s open trap door, a square hole in the street, and a scabrous urchin squatting by the wall and drawing patterns in the mud with a stick. The big wooden sign on the corner of the street displayed the gorily severed head of a turbaned Saracen creaking in the foul breeze that blew up the street off the River Thames.

  ‘All clear,’ Blood called and stepped out, his two mismatched lieutenants following, one at each shoulder. They had not gone more than five paces when they heard the sound of clattering boot-nails on granite cobbles. Five different men but in the same gorgeous moss-green coats as the tavern intruders came hurtling around the corner. Blood stopped short. William Hunt barged into his broad back and cursed, ‘Jesu!’

  ‘Watch that blasphemy, Will,’ Blood murmured. He saw cudgels, a sword or two, in the gang of Ormonde footmen in front of him. A thin pink-faced young footman in a white wig at the back was waving a horse pistol.

  ‘Colonel, sir,’ said Parrot, laying a meaty hand on Blood’s right shoulder. He turned and saw three more men in moss-green coats come running around the corner that led to the tavern. A heartbeat later and the glossy black periwig of the Earl of Ossory could be seen behind them.

  Five in front, four behind. Blood had faced worse odds and won.

  ‘There!’ said Will, pointing at a narrow alleyway on the other side of the street; a dark stinking tunnel, the upper storeys of the houses almost meeting above, blocking out the sunlight. The three fugitives ran across and dived into the square opening, sprinting into darkness. Their pursuers were no more than ten paces behind and hallooing like huntsmen in sight of their fox.

  With every step Blood’s ankle sent a lightning bolt of pain up into his groin. He caught his foot on something and went sprawling, splashing into filth. Parrot’s massive hand seized him by the scruff of his coat and lifted him upright. There was light up ahead, the alley’s end, and William Hunt’s small frame was outlined in the white square, his arm outstretched towards them. There was a spark, a fizz and crack, then a spear of flame lashed out towards Blood. He could have sworn he felt the wind of the ball as it passed his cheek. A man cried out in pain from behind him, he heard shouts of outrage from the pursuing pack. A horse pistol fired in reply to William’s shot, a deeper report, but Blood and Parrot were already out of the alley and following their companion who was running on ahead through the busy streets of Southwark, his head darting from side to side, questing for an escape route.

  There were shouts of ‘Murderers!’ and ‘Stop them!’ from behind. But the crowds were thicker here, nearer the bridge. They jinked left into a quieter street, then right into an empty road. And right again. A dead end. Not a street or alley, but a short bay next to a large warehouse beside the river, fenced off from the slow brown ooze of the Thames, a place for carts to load cargo from the river barges before beginning the long journey down the Old Kent Road to the port of Dover. Parrot seized the iron-barred fence between them and the river and shook it with his full, colossal strength. It was like trying to shake a mountain. He looked at Blood and shrugged.

  ‘Didn’t fancy a swim much anyway,’ said Blood

  The various cries of ‘Stop! Murderers!’ and ‘They went down here’ and ‘Watch your feet, you clumsy whoreson’ were very close now.

  ‘They will hang us for sure if they take us alive,’ said William, looking up pitiably into Blood’s face. He was more than halfway through loading his small pocket pistol, about to shove the wadded lead ball down the barrel with the slim wooden rammer.

  ‘But they’re not going to take us alive,’ said Blood, smiling boldly at the small man. ‘Not now. Not ever. So – as usual, lads, it’s sauve qui peut, God speed, and rendezvous at Romford tonight, yes?’

  The two other men nodded: William Hunt miserably, Joshua Parrot wearing a mad, piratical grin. He had a five-foot-length of thick, rounded timber in his hands, a snapped-off wherry oar by the looks of it.

  ‘Keep the faith, boys, and we’ll all come up smiling yet.’

  Blood twisted the silver wolf’s head of his cane, pulled off the black-lacquered wooden sheath and revealed a yard of slim shining steel blade concealed inside. He strode quickly to the exit of the loading bay and walked out and straight into the path of the surging mob.

  ‘Who wants to die first?’ he enquired mildly.

  The crowd of men and women – now swelled to at least thirty strong – was momentarily checked by the sight of Blood’s naked blade. At the back of the throng, Ossory called out: ‘Seize them, you cowardly swine!’ But no one leaped forward at his lordly word of command. They stared at Blood and the yard of needle-sharp steel twitching in his right hand.

  It was Parrot’s unexpected, roaring charge that scattered them. The big man came barrelling out of the loading bay past his comrade, the broken oar swinging. He smashed the wooden club into the head of a bald man in the moss-green livery, knocking him instantly to the floor. Parrot’s second swipe knocked two tradesmen flying, sending a half dozen more members of the crowd leaping backwards. His third blow smacked into the belly of a fat, flour-dusted woman and she doubled over coughing. The compact mass had been broken apart; now Parrot was the focus of a semi-circle of terrified onlookers, kept at bay by the sweeps of his oar. Blood slipped in behind his comrade, his sword-stick licking out to skewer the right shoulder of the pink-faced young man with the horse pistol, just as he was about to fire into Parrot’s broad back. The man howled and dropped the weapon with a clatter to the cobbles. He heard Hunt’s pocket pistol crack behind him and another duke’s man fell to his knees to his right, clutching his bloodied chest. Blood slashed at another fellow’s face, a tradesman with a cudgel, cutting a flap of bloody flesh from his jaw. The man ducked aside moaning, gore spewing through his fingers. Blood dodged a flung fist, kicked a man in the groin. Now in the general melee, Blood took a hard shove to the back and found himself face to face with Ossory on the edge of the circle. The earl had an unsheathed rapier in his hand.

  Blood lunged with the sword-stick at Ossory’s right forearm, hoping to pink him and make him drop the weapon, but his opponent danced nimbly away from the steel. He came forward step-stepping and then went into the full lunge. Blood parried, driving the rapier high and wide, and attacked again. Ossory turned sideways, letting the sword-stick slide past his chest. Then the nobleman countered, the longer blade lifting and lancing towards his opponent’s heart. Blood cr
acked the rapier away to his left with the lacquered ebony haft of the cane, and stepped inside its reach. Ossory was wide open. A dead man if Blood lunged. An easy kill. But Blood hesitated for a split instant, sword-stick poised to skewer, then pushed the blade wide and barged forward, his shoulder and full fifteen-stone weight crashing into the slender earl’s chest, knocking him to the cobbles.

  Blood took a deep, gasping breath, wondering at his own mercy. He saw no one ahead of him, and no one on either side. He began hobbling as fast as his ankle would allow, back down the way he had come. He snatched a fast look behind him and saw Parrot still swatting petulantly with the broken oar at the few remaining members of the mob, but they were clearly beaten, backing into doorways to evade the swinging wood, others actually running down the street in the opposite direction. Two men in green were on their knees, bleeding busily on the cobbles. The fat woman lay curled around herself, vomiting and spitting. Ossory had lost his beautiful periwig and was sitting spraddle-legged on his cloak gaping at Blood. The rapier was four yards away from his right hand. There was no sign of William Hunt.

  Blood saluted Ossory with his sword-stick, a flamboyant, sweeping gesture, then wheeled and hobbled onwards. He turned a corner, then another. There was no pursuit. He sheathed his blade. Pulled his wide-brimmed hat lower over his eyes, buttoned his coat up and strolled into the heavy traffic of the Borough High Street, allowing the press of the crowds, carts and horses to sweep him north towards the bridge. He glanced left at the yellow bulk of Southwark Cathedral, then right through the open gates of a coaching inn, and casually spun full circle to look behind him, going up on his toes and using his full height to scan over the bobbing heads. But there was no one – green-coated or otherwise – who seemed at all interested in his movements. As he came onto the bridge itself, under the grim row of rotting traitors’ heads and the ever-present flock of feasting, shrieking seagulls, he looked back one last time. No one following. He prepared himself to cross the brown water and enter the City of London.

  His ankle hurt like ungreased buggery, his shirt was sweat-soaked and there were splashes of wet mud and bright gore on the turned-back sleeves of his big blue woollen coat, but the blood sizzled in his veins from the morning’s exertions. He felt good. Damn good. His head felt clear and sharp. Which was just as well: he had a deal of business to conduct this day.

  *

  His Majesty Charles the Second, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, Ireland and (in deference to the long-defunct claims of his ancestors) France, Defender of the Faith, Knight of the Garter, etc., etc., gave another mighty strain. His face glowed, the fat veins in his temple swelled. His abdominal muscles clenched, unclenched, clenched again. Nothing.

  ‘It’s no use, Grenville,’ he said to the groom of the close stool, a greyish, careworn courtier who stood beside him in the closet, proffering a large wooden box stuffed with lambs’ wool. ‘I’m locked up as tight as a pair of Cornish wrestlers.’

  Sir John Grenville grimaced. As a Cornishman, he did not much like his compatriots being compared to blocked bowels, even royal blocked bowels. He took a tiny step backwards – there was not a lot of room to spare in the closet – and eyed the King, who was sitting naked from the waist down on a large, ornately carved oak box with padded velvet seat, a generous oval hole cut in it and a wide porcelain bowl hidden in the darkness beneath. Outside the closet the King’s new mistress, that smart-mouthed whore Nell Gwyn, should be dressing herself after her morning’s exertions and preparing for her discreet departure. Indeed, Grenville hoped that she had left the royal apartments in the Palace of White Hall and was already back in her own lavish rooms. He did not want the King to be enticed into another noisy and prolonged bout once he’d finished his business in here.

  ‘Sire,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should abandon this most gallant attempt. The duke has been awaiting your pleasure in the red audience chamber this past hour or more.’

  ‘Let him wait. Which one is it again?’

  ‘Which one, sire?’

  ‘Which duke, blockhead. There are only two who constantly seem to delight in robbing me of what little leisure I am granted: Buckingham and Ormonde. Which one is it?’

  ‘It’s His Grace the Duke of Buckingham who seeks an audience with you, sire. He has been waiting more than an hour.’

  The groom of the close stool was indulged certain liberties with the King. As well as his more odoriferous duties, or perhaps because of them, he was the King’s closest advisor. A man who was privy – in all senses – to His Majesty’s most intimate secrets.

  ‘I don’t much care if he waits all morning. Buckingham, eh? So what does he want? Tell me honestly, Grenville.’

  ‘Honestly, sire? Honestly, he wants power, as Your Majesty knows very well. He wants to enrich himself at Your Majesty’s and the country’s expense. He wants more influence and more money. So does the Duke of Ormonde, for that matter. So do the whole pack of them: Arlington, Clifford, Lauderdale and Ashley. They all want the same thing. Every man in your ministry. But what His Grace the Duke of Buckingham says that he wants, is to discuss the current, uh, grave situation with regard to the royal finances.’

  ‘Sounds terribly boring.’

  ‘Indeed, sire, I doubt it will be overly stimulating, but it might be wise not to irritate him more than is necessary. He now has considerable sway in both Houses and his influence is growing.’

  Charles had returned from exile in the Low Countries ten years ago in a state of near-beggary and Parliament had been obliged to vote him an annual sum from the Treasury, more than a million pounds sterling, to allow him to live in a suitably regal state. Both Houses considered the amount generous, princely even. The King himself – and his many courtiers, servants, ministers, mistresses, friends, relations and dependants – entirely disagreed.

  ‘Sire, perhaps we should abandon the struggle for today.’

  ‘Wait, wait a moment! I think I might have something.’

  The groom of the close stool shut his eyes. The proffered box of lamb’s wool was beginning to feel as if it were filled with lead.

  After a painful stretched-out silence, the King let out a long, trembling, eerily high-pitched trumpet-blast.

  ‘Sire? May we now agree that we are done for today?’

  ‘Wait, wait, wait. Yes, there is more. Yes, by God!’ He groaned like an exhausted heifer trying to give birth.

  There was a tinny sound – a ping like a spent pistol bullet hitting a steel breastplate. Sir John Grenville jerked with surprise.

  ‘That will do, by God. Pass me the wool box, Grenville, and let’s go and see about this damned impatient, importunate and grasping duke.’

  *

  The Duke of Buckingham stared at a huge tapestry that occupied the entire side of the red audience chamber. It must be thirty-feet long and twenty-feet high and by the look of its quality it had been made in Flanders, probably Oudenaarde. It depicted Julius Caesar returning in triumph to Rome having subdued the barbarians of Gaul. The Imperator was mounted, his hand raised flamboyantly in the air, as if he were in the midst of declaiming, his officers, all on foot, clustered round gazing up adoringly. In the background a pack of deer hounds gambolled in a forest.

  Buckingham hated it. He had seen it a score of times before at audiences with the King and at meetings with his ministers in this very room, but he had never noticed until now that Caesar had a marked resemblance to His Majesty – the same long nose in a long horsey face, thin moustache and long luxuriant chestnut hair; although he seemed to remember from his long-ago schooling that Caesar had famously been bald, and he knew for certain that Charles’s own sparse hair was covered by a shockingly expensive chestnut periwig – a cost of 800 shillings, one of his spies had told him!

  Buckingham found himself surprised by his own lack of perspicacity. The tapestry was a metaphor, of course, for King Charles’s restoration to the throne. How could he not have seen it before? And how typically crass it was of this
beggarly monarch to compare himself to mighty Caesar. The Roman had conquered swathes of the world, had made himself master of the greatest city on Earth. In contrast, Charles had lost a bloody civil war, fled into exile, and scurried back to London nearly a decade later when England had grown sick of the Protectorate’s joyless, iron-fisted governance.

  The man was a mere popinjay, a mountebank who couldn’t keep his prick in his breeches for five minutes, who thought that scattering grand titles, pensions and perquisites to his toadies, mistresses and bastard children was the same as governing his kingdoms. Caesar had always known the value of money, which could scarcely be said of Old Rowley, as the wits called Charles behind his back because of his resemblance to the racehorse of that name. He spent money like a boatswain in a brothel – and would he listen to his closest friends, men who had been childhood companions, on grave financial matters? No, he humiliated them by making them wait for him to finish tupping his latest whore – that actress chit who was no doubt soon to be ennobled as the Countess of Lift-My-Skirts. Or whatever the hell the King was doing that morning besides wasting the duke’s precious time.

  Buckingham’s vitriolic thoughts were interrupted by a door on the far side of the room banging open and the sight of the King striding long-legged into the room dressed in a vast purple silk robe, matching purple silk slippers with huge purple silk bows and accompanied, as ever, by the dour Sir John Grenville and a dozen floppy-haired, yapping spaniels. A pair of young white-wigged footmen, splendid in scarlet and gold, held the doors wide open to allow the boisterous dog pack to tumble into the room.

  ‘Hail, Caesar,’ muttered the duke as he made his low and elegant bow. As he straightened, he unconsciously adjusted his long grey silk waistcoat. He said, much louder, over the sounds of the excitedly barking animals: ‘Your Majesty, how gracious it is of you to favour me with your presence this morning. May I say how extraordinarily well you are looking today, magnificently regal, ’pon my word of honour.’