by Angus Donald
‘Sergeant, would you mind awfully helping me put a stop to this unseemly scuffling.’
Holcroft was dimly aware of someone speaking above him, a refined, musical voice. He looked up. The golden boy crashed a painful fist into his shoulder. He felt strong hands seize his neck and arm and pull him away from his opponent. He was glad to see the golden coat was torn and daubed with blood. The other boy was held around the neck by one of the guards, glaring at Holcroft as he spat out a red thread of drool.
‘If I release you, will you swear to desist from further warlike acts?’ said the voice in his ear. Holcroft nodded and felt himself released. The boy had clearly made a similar undertaking and the sergeant released him.
‘You are the Earl of Westbury’s youngest boy, Robert, isn’t it? You are senior page to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham, is that right?’ The golden boy nodded but didn’t cease from glaring murder at Holcroft.
‘Ensign John Churchill of the First Regiment of the King’s Foot Guards, at your service – and these are my men,’ said the young man, who was dressed in a similar red coat and blue trimmings as the other soldiers but with a good deal of silver embroidery and a delicate lace cravat at his neck. He wore fine black leather boots that came up beyond his knees and had a pistol shoved casually into his sash and a slim sword hanging at his left side.
‘Now, would you care to explain why you have been brawling at the gates of the King’s palace like a pair of drunken costermongers?’
‘He assaulted me, the little guttersnipe. Knocked me down with a sneak punch when I wasn’t expecting it. If he were a gentleman, I would certainly challenge him and run him through.’
‘Well, it is your good fortune that he is not, for the King has issued a proclamation against duelling, as I’m sure you know. You, sir, what’s your business here and why did you assault this young gentleman?’
Holcroft said nothing. He stared at his now badly scuffed shoes.
‘Speak up, lad.’
‘I was sent here to be a page to the Duke of Buckingham, sir. I waited here while a message was sent to the duke and then this rude fellow came over and made mock of me, of my clothing and of my mother. So I hit him.’
‘Well then, it seems that we have all the facts of the case. You, sir, what is your name by the way?’
Holcroft told him.
‘Very good. You will apologise to the young gentleman here for bloodying his nose and soiling his pretty coat. And you, Robert Westbury, you will gracefully accept his apology. Come along, both of you.’
Holcroft fixed his eyes on a streak of blood on Westbury’s chin. ‘I offer you my apology, sir, for striking you without warning.’
Westbury grunted something foul under his breath.
‘Excellent. All is forgiven then. Now you cut along, Mister Westbury, and get yourself cleaned up. I will escort Mister Blood to his new situation in due course. Off you go.’
Westbury gave Holcroft a final look of hatred, then turned and passed through the arch into the wide street beyond.
Jack Churchill turned to Holcroft. ‘I’m sure he will be his sunny, happy-go-lucky self once more when he has had time to cool down. In the meantime, why don’t you and I share a restorative glass of sack in the guardhouse, then I will take you along to see the Duke of Buckingham.’
‘Do you serve him too, then, sir?’ asked Holcroft.
‘Not I. My patron is the King’s brother, James, Duke of York. Not so very long ago I was a page in his service, just as you will be shortly for my Lord Buckingham. So I will offer you a few pointers, if you will listen to them, while we restore ourselves with a whet.’
The young officer led Holcroft across the road, through a narrow entrance guarded by another red-coated soldier, and into a broad cobbled courtyard. They turned right and walked a dozen yards to a little wooden building, not much more than a hut, in front of a wide palatial structure that spanned the whole width of the courtyard with a row of Grecian stone columns making a shady colonnade outside the stone front. Jack seated him at a rough wooden table outside the hut, went inside and came out with a green bottle and glasses on a tray. He poured a measure of the dry white wine, known as secco or sack, into a crystal glass.
Holcroft had never drunk from a glass before and he feared that he would crush its delicate beauty in his big hands. He remembered visiting his mother’s parents’ big house in Lancashire some years back, after the family had fled Dublin and his father had been obliged to take refuge in Holland, and he had seen his grandfather drinking from one. But Holcroft had always drunk from pewter, leather or earthenware in Shoreditch. He sipped carefully from the glass – it made the wine taste delicious, crisp and fresh. He held the glass up to the weak autumn sunlight steaming across the empty courtyard and admired the colours: the yellow wine, the sparkles of blue and orange as the sunshine struck the crystal.
‘Do you like the wine, Mister Blood?’
He nodded, aware that his companion was observing him closely. He forced himself to look fully into the young officer’s face. It was a beautiful face, almost girlish in its delicacy, very lean but strong-jawed and tanned by some harsh foreign sun.
‘Do you think my clothes are risible, sir?’ Holcroft asked.
Jack laughed. ‘I would never dare to say so having witnessed how you served young Westbury with your fists.’
Holcroft stared at him. Jack smothered his smile. ‘His Grace will clothe you well enough, my friend, in good time. But you are poorly dressed, it cannot be denied. There is no crime in beginning in poverty – why, my own family has little in the way of wealth – but a man should strive hard to escape it. Poverty should be the spur to rise in the world and, in your new position, well, if you play your cards right . . .’
‘I do like to play cards, sir. I have a set, here in my fardel. They are all extremely beautiful. But the queen of diamonds is my favourite.’
Holcroft began to rummage in his belongings then; after a moment or two he triumphantly removed his treasured Parisian pack and flourished them before the other man’s amused smile.
Jack looked fondly at him, the way one might at a clumsy kitten that had found its way into a riding boot.
‘Take care, youngster, that you do not lose whatever wealth you may acquire in the duke’s service. More than one promising young man has come to ruin by putting his trust in the turn of a card.’
Jack poured Holcroft some more of the wine.
‘Oh, I would never lose money that way.’ The sack and this fellow’s kindness were making him feel unusually talkative. ‘My father says that all our wealth was lost when His Majesty was restored to the throne. We had lands in Ireland, you know, but the Duke of Ormonde took them in the King’s name, father says, and gave them to another family.’
‘I would keep that under your hat here, if I were you.’
‘I have no hat, sir . . .’
‘It is only a figure of speech.’
‘What is that?
‘It is a saying, a light-hearted saying . . . like a joke. I meant only that I would not speak of that if I were you. Who is your father?’
‘He is Colonel Thomas Blood, sir.’
Jack sat back in his chair. ‘Indeed! I now see where you get your fire.’
Holcroft said nothing. Fire?
‘Listen to me, my young friend, I have some advice for you. There will be opportunity for you here at the palace. Attend to the duke and serve him well but be bold, too. You might find yourself a generous patron, or even a patroness, eh? You are a handsome fellow, if a little unusual in your manner, and if you were to catch the eye of a fine lady, who knows what favours she might bestow on you.’ The young soldier winked at Holcroft.
Holcroft frowned. He did not fully understand what this genial fellow was suggesting. Perhaps he was making another joke. Holcroft could not tell. However, he did seem friendly and Holcroft was in that moment feeling even more than usually friendless.
‘Would you be my patron, sir?�
��
Jack laughed: the same happy note, quite without malice.
‘I am not, alas, in that position, Mister Blood. You and I are almost in the same sad, impoverished state here. We are two young men trying to make our way in the world with nothing but our wits and charm to support us. But I wish you all the luck in the world. And I’ll give you a final piece of advice before we go. The ladies love a soldier and, having seen you fight, I think you might have the makings of one. You are quick and strong and evidently do not lack for courage. Keep it in mind. It is a fine life and can be most rewarding. Assuming that you live long enough to enjoy it. Now we must away – it would not do to keep your new master waiting too long on your first day. I shall conduct you to the Cockpit and we’ll part there as friends.’
*
Holcroft had never been inside a room that was quite this sumptuous. It was enormous, three times the height of a man, the walls papered from floor to ceiling in striped blue and gold. Three vast windows were flanked by tied-back curtains of watered blue silk and the thick blue carpet, wondrously spongy beneath his shoes, depicted fantastical beasts of the Orient – tigers and elephants and dragons on a background of intricate geometrical design. Through the windows Holcroft could see St James’s Park and a fine tall gentleman in a deep-purple robe with a towering pyramid of a black wig was promenading with a grand lady in a vast pink dress across the immaculate grass. Could that be the King himself? Holcroft almost did not dare to look. He stood stiff and still, as he had been instructed to do, and waited until His Grace the Duke of Buckingham, his new master, deigned to notice him.
The duke was seated behind a huge wooden desk covered in thick piles of papers, conferring with two men – one thin and dark with a fine moustache, the other younger, plump and fussy – in low, urgent tones. In the vast room, Holcroft could not quite make out what they were saying. His new master spoke more loudly than the other two, and the boy heard the King mentioned more than once and he thought he heard the dark man say something about France being their only hope. His mind wandered a little. He thought about the mocking golden boy who didn’t know how to fight and wondered whether he would make trouble.
His stomach rumbled. The wine was strong in his blood but the glow he had enjoyed with the soldier Jack Churchill – his new friend – was fading. Perhaps he would be punished for brawling with Robert Westbury. He did not know the rules here. A scuffle in the street was nothing in Shoreditch, almost a daily occurrence, but everything here seemed to be different. He must try to please these great men. If he lost his position because of a brawl he would disappoint his father. And he would be sent back to Shoreditch.
The short plump man twisted in his seat, his elbow gently knocking a pile of the papers and sending the top sheet wafting down and along, caught by a stray gust, to the carpet a yard from Holcroft’s shoes. He bent quickly to pick it up, glanced briefly at it and stopped.
It was a square of yellow paper and he had expected to see lines of words on it, a letter, perhaps, or a receipt from some tradesman. A friend of his father’s had taken particular care to teach him his ABCs in Dublin, and he had enjoyed reading anything from pamphlets to passages from the Holy Bible from the minute he had mastered the art. But on the piece of paper in his hand, instead of familiar Roman letters, he saw a block of figures, in no particular order, the numbers one to nine written out and repeating themselves in seemingly random order, sometimes with little marks, asterisks and quotations beside particular numbers and dashes between little clumps of them. Holcroft was fascinated. He glanced up from the piece of paper. The three men were still very deep in their talk, oblivious to him. He looked back down and read:
1* 6’ – 3 2’ 1’ 5* – 9 3’ 7* 7* 9 2’ 7* 4’ 2* – 3’ – 6 1’ 5’ 2’ – 1 2’ 2’ 2* – 6* 7* 5* 3’ 5’ 3’ 2* 5 . . .
It was clearly a code of some sort, probably with the numbers and symbols indicating letters of the alphabet. But only the numbers one to nine were used, in which case the marks must indicate a secondary use of them . . .
‘Give me that!’ The tall dark man was coming round the table towards Holcroft, his face pale with rage. He tore the letter from the boy’s hand and gave him a resounding slap on the side of the face.
Holcroft stepped back and raised his fists.
‘You would strike me!’ The man’s face was now only inches from Holcroft’s; he could smell coffee on his breath overlaying the rot of teeth. ‘Touch me and I’ll have you whipped bloody, by God.’
‘Steady, Osborne,’ said the plump one. ‘Sure he meant you no harm.’
Buckingham looked on with amusement from his chair behind the desk. He steepled his fingers, cocked his head and seemed to be examining the boy for the first time.
‘Littleton, you fool, it’s an old letter from our . . .’ Osborne stopped suddenly. Then he finished lamely, ‘. . . from Versailles.’
‘Then the boy would scarcely be able to read it,’ Littleton told him.
Osborne glared at Holcroft, who had the sense to lower his hands.
‘But I can read it, sir,’ Holcroft blurted out, ‘at least I think I can. Although I meant no harm by looking at it, I merely meant to return it to your table, quiet like, but it was so interesting. Beg pardon, sirs.’
‘Hold hard, boy,’ said the duke, standing up from his seat behind the desk. ‘You say you can read it – from only one swift glance.’
‘Nonsense – the boy’s little better than a half-wit, an imbecile,’ said Osborne. ‘Blood admitted it himself. He spends most of the time cleaning and sweeping and straightening things up at home. Making things neat. Doesn’t speak much but might be useful around the place to keep it in order, that’s what Blood said. He doesn’t understand half of what is said to him.’
The duke gave Holcroft a long, slow look. He came out from behind the desk and took three steps towards him. ‘You are Colonel Blood’s son, yes? The new page that has been foisted on me?’
Holcroft nodded. He examined his new master with lowered eyes: a long pearl-grey silk coat with emerald collar and cuffs, a matching waistcoat with a gold chain elegantly draped over the gold buttons at the front.
‘You say you can read the message on this paper, yes?’
Holcroft nodded.
The duke said: ‘Give him the paper, Osborne, let us see if the boy has inherited a drop of Blood’s cunning.’
‘Your Grace, I don’t think . . .’
‘Just give him the damned paper, man.’
Holcroft took the paper, and quickly scanned the figures and symbols.
‘Read it then, boy, if you can,’ growled Osborne.
‘I would guess that the Us and Vs are the same number, and I suppose the double Us are just two Us but the rest is perfectly straightforward . . .’
‘Read it,’ said the duke.
Holcroft began: ‘My dear Littleton . . .’
‘He could easily have guessed that part,’ said the fat man behind the desk. ‘My name is hardly unknown about the palace – or even in the gutters of St Giles. Or whatever foul slum he hails from.’
‘Be silent, sir. Now read on, boy,’ commanded the duke.
Holcroft cleared his throat: ‘My dear Littleton, I have been striving hard in the service of our cause here at court but a shortage of funds is preventing me from fulfilling my duties. As you well know, I encountered this same problem in Antwerp with disastrous results and I cannot stress enough the importance of ample amounts of ready money in this sort of undertaking. There are certain inducements I must make in order to open the right doors if you wish me to continue my investigation of Madame’s—’
‘Stop! Stop! That is enough, I believe you,’ said Osborne, snatching the paper once again from Holcroft’s hands.
Holcroft was aware that all three men were staring at him with their mouths open. He looked down at the geometrical designs of the carpet, trying to find comfort in the regular shapes.
‘It’s like witchcraft,’
Littleton finally said. ‘It takes one of our trained clerks half a morning to encrypt one of these letters and yet the boy reads it as easily as if it were The London Gazette.’
‘How does he do it?’ asked Osborne. ‘How do you do it, Mister Blood, tell me?’
‘I do not know, sir, I see it and the pattern becomes clear.’
‘Well, well,’ said the duke. ‘He might look like a raggedy-arsed link-boy but he clearly has a brain like a counting-house comptroller. At last I have had something of value from that rascal Blood.’
Holcroft continued to stare at the carpet.
‘You’ve done well, boy! You will render me good service, of that I have no doubt.’ The duke reached into his waistcoat pocket and flicked something towards Holcroft. It glittered as it arced through the air and, as Holcroft caught it, he saw it was a silver half-crown. It felt warm, heavy and slightly greasy in his hand.
‘Now leave us to our labours, Mister Blood. The page will show you your quarters and instruct you in your duties though I believe we can make better use of you than tidying up my chambers and sweeping the floors.’
*
‘I never want to go back to that terrible place, Father, never. I would rather die,’ said Tom.
Blood sat back and took a long pull at his pint of white wine. ‘And you never shall go back, son, not while my old limbs still have a little strength.’
The four men – Blood, Tom, Joshua Parrot and William Hunt – were seated in a small room off the main tap of the Bull’s Head in Charing Cross. Tom was still in his prison rags and, after a week in the Marshalsea, the most notorious gaol in England, he had lost more than a stone in weight and taken on a pallor that was almost ethereal.
The boy is weak, Blood thought, and stupid. Just like the other one. What possessed Tom to think that he could become a gentleman of the road? What a childish notion. He had neither the wit nor the dash to carry it off – and nor was it a task for one man to attempt alone. Madness!
