‘I want your father,’ Cromwell said. ‘I want what he knows. His contacts. I want him alive. Do you understand?’
20
We went to the stables to take our horses to my house, further up the lane where we intended to stay the night. George cut off my flood of thanks. He said he needed me to get him out of the mess he was in. He wished he hadn’t come to Cromwell – it had made a difficult task impossible. Avoid bloodshed. Don’t touch a hair of the King’s head. Nor Richard Stonehouse’s!
I had not realised how heavily my secret meetings with my father had weighed down on me until that moment. I felt so lightheaded that I had confessed to Cromwell and been given this chance to redeem myself I was prepared to eat any amount of humble pie.
‘At least we have Cromwell’s blessing,’ I said.
George exploded. ‘Is that what you call it! If we seize the King, Cromwell gets the glory. If we fail, we’re mutineers and hanged. Cromwell’s blessing!’
At my house we gave our horses to Jed, whom I had appointed ostler before I went to Essex. He had lost his arm at Edgehill, but was using his hook adroitly to rub down the horses of a carriage – the carriage that had put Cromwell and his guests so much on edge.
It belonged to Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, a close friend of Anne’s. It was a measure of the unrest in the City, which she had experienced returning from a reception, that she had called so late to warn Anne to be extra vigilant. There was something else, I could feel it. With the Countess, there was always something else.
Lucy Hay was close to the Queen but, before the war, had been even closer to John Pym, leader of the opposition. She shared political secrets with Pym, by which he and Cromwell drove the King from London. Whether she shared John Pym’s bed or not I did not know, but when Pym died during the war, she said she had given up love.
The war marked everyone else, but it had scarcely touched the Countess. Her skin had the same translucent quality that transfixed me when I first saw her. Her dark ringlets framed shrewd blue eyes, sparkling with belladonna. It was close on eleven but she had the whole house up. I scarcely had time to kiss a bewildered Anne before Lucy was ordering a cup of chocolate. George entered the house exhausted, knowing we had to be up at dawn, but as soon as he saw her he lost all desire for sleep.
Lucy knew how to manage people. Even when she mistook George for my batman, she recovered quickly.
‘You are a cornet – you wave the flag?’
‘Standard, madam,’ he said coldly.
‘Standard bearer, exactly. The most important job in the army.’
George smiled and bowed, looking as if he had been made a general.
Anne had told her we had been at Cromwell’s. ‘It can’t have been much of a party if Betsy Cromwell was only giving her guests bread.’
I really believed it was witchcraft that she knew such a small detail, until Jane came in to serve the hot chocolate, and it turned out she was the source of the extra bread Mrs Cromwell had borrowed.
‘Betsy served butter with it at least, I suppose?’ said Lucy.
‘And excellent butter it was too,’ said George, coming to the rescue of Mrs Cromwell’s hospitality with such gallantry that everyone burst out laughing. Beaming at the unexpected success of this, he was inspired to cap it. ‘And it was something rather more important than a party.’
‘Really?’ Lucy set down her chocolate with a little click. The blue irises filled her eyes. ‘What can be more important than a party?’
George’s chest swelled. ‘We are here –’
‘To discuss indemnities. Pay,’ I cut in, giving George a warning glance.
‘Cromwell’s made sure of his pay, hasn’t he? Well, he deserves it,’ Lucy conceded. ‘He should return to the fens. A great soldier, but a disastrous politician.’
‘Cromwell is our best hope for the future,’ I said coldly.
‘God help us then,’ she said. ‘For Cromwell is finished.’
George looked at her, startled. She said it in her usual throwaway tone but there was an edge to it which suggested it was more than the usual piece of gossip which she enjoyed taking her time to reveal. Anne intensified that feeling by avoiding my eyes, picking the skin of milk from her chocolate. George, unused to Lucy’s bombshells, leaned forward, mouth slightly open: the sort of audience Lucy enjoyed. I took a perverse pleasure from the crash of a door and the sound of running feet that robbed her of her moment.
Luke burst into the room, crying. Jane tried to hold him but he pushed away from her, arms flailing, and ran towards Anne. A torrent of incomprehensible words came out of him before Anne managed to calm him.
‘He was there again,’ he sobbed.
Anne soothed him. ‘It’s all right. I won’t let him take you away.’
‘Who’s he talking about?’ I said.
Luke twisted round in his mother’s arms. ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’ As I moved to take him, he pulled back. ‘You are here, aren’t you?’
I laughed. ‘Yes. I’m here.’
He wriggled into my arms, still warm and fusty from sleep. ‘I thought I heard you. But then I thought you were in my dream, but you are here, aren’t you?’
‘I’m here. Yes, yes. Ssshh.’
‘Have you killed him?’
‘Who?’
‘He keeps dreaming about Gloomy George,’ Anne said. ‘At the funeral. He thinks Gloomy George took his sister Liz away and will come back for him.’
Luke jerked upright, almost falling from my arms. ‘Have you killed him?’
I walked him round, holding him tight. ‘I won’t let him harm you. I promise you. Ssshh. Go back to sleep.’
But at that moment he saw Lucy. ‘Aunty Lucy! Have you come for us? Are we coming to live in your house now?’
I laughed. ‘You don’t want to leave Jed, and Jane, and your horse, do you?’
Then I saw the expressions of complicity on Lucy and Anne’s faces. ‘What is going on?’
‘Lucy has kindly offered to let us stay at her house. We will be safer there,’ Anne said.
‘Safer? What are you talking about?’
‘Lord Stonehouse is too close to Cromwell,’ Lucy said.
‘Cromwell!’ Luke said sleepily, bringing up his hand as if he was brandishing a sword.
Anne looked meaningly towards George who was gaping at us all as if he was watching a play. I gave Luke to Jane to take back to bed and showed George up to my dressing room, where there was a truckle bed. Then I left him to sleep and returned to Anne and Lucy.
Downstairs the garden doors were open and for the first time that day I felt cool. For once, Lucy began without preamble.
‘Cromwell is fleeing from London.’
Deprived of her usual sense of timing, the words came out so flatly, so baldly, that I laughed. ‘He has a funny way of fleeing. Drinking beer with his friends.’
She turned to Jane. ‘Tell him what you heard.’
‘It’s servants’ gossip, madam.’
‘Tell him.’
It was the bread. Jane had it from the kitchen maid who had come to our house for more loaves, who had it from Mrs Cromwell’s personal maid, that her chest was packed. So were Mr Cromwell’s papers. He had personally burned a large quantity of papers that day. The kitchen maid had that from the scullery girl, who did the fires. The horses were kept ready. Whether they planned to go to the country, or abroad, nobody knew. Even Massachusetts was whispered. I groped for a chair and sat down stunned. Cromwell had seemed all-powerful, immovable, barking orders, but you could never keep anything from the servants.
I remembered the swords at the guests’ belts, and Cromwell’s hand going to his at the approach of the carriage. The despatches Cromwell wadded in his hand, and Cromwell asking Ireton if there was a message about Holles’s reception at Derby House that evening. Ireton had replied that Lord Stonehouse’s informer had been taken. Killed? Or in the Tower, being questioned?
‘You were at Derby House this evening, Lucy?’
‘Of course. I like to keep myself informed.’
‘What did you learn that brought you here?’
‘Tom! You are trying to pump me. You’ll have to do it more subtly than that.’
Anne put a hand on my arm, but I shook it off and stood over the Countess. ‘What did you learn, Lucy?’
She looked back at me steadily. ‘Only that things are bad and going to get worse. I was concerned enough to offer my hospitality to Anne and Luke. Now. I must not linger. I know you have to be up at the crack of dawn.’
She knew that. She knew about our meeting with Cromwell. She was probably able to put the pieces together better than anyone else in London. But to whom was she giving her conclusions? Had she come here to help us – or to find things out?
She finished her chocolate, pronouncing it very good in the circumstances, but when things were back to normal, which she hoped would be very soon, the best cocoa would be on sale at their favourite shop in the ’Change.
Jane was waiting to put on Lucy’s cloak, and I broke in on her and Anne’s leaving chatter.
‘How soon is soon, Lucy?’
Her look told me I had become a bore. So, I saw with a stab of anger, did Anne’s. For the first time Lucy betrayed a flash of irritation. ‘How do I know, Tom? I can only tell you what I hope. That the King is soon back, and we have decency and order in this City.’
Anne nodded fervently. It was heartfelt. I knew what she and Luke had been through. But as I watched Jane help Lucy into her cloak, the red silk lining rippling, I was shocked to see how completely Anne had come under Lucy’s spell. When the King had been in power Lucy had been the mistress of the man closest to the royal ear, the Earl of Strafford. When Mr Pym engineered Strafford’s execution and was on his way to power, she began her relationship with him. I had never thought about it, but I suppose his death had left a vacancy.
The Countess adjusted the diamond clasp on her cloak to her satisfaction.
‘Decency and order,’ I said. ‘And good cocoa.’
She smiled. ‘Exactly,’
It was the complacency of that smile that did it. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. ‘Whose bed are you sharing tonight, Lucy?’
Her smile froze, but only for a moment before she said, ‘My gloves, Jane? Thank you.’
When Lucy had gone and Anne had retired, I knocked at her door. It was locked. She had never done that before. Only when I knocked on it so loudly that she was afraid I would wake Luke again did she open it.
‘You are as foul-mouthed as your pamphlets, sir.’
Everything about her seemed to be in violent movement: her lips, her eyes, her tossing hair. She had begun to undress and pulled her shift back into place to cover her breasts. The movement both inflamed and enraged me. When I would not go, she put on her dressing gown, which made me want her even more. Worst of all was that look of contempt on her face, the look she gave me when I arrived as an apprentice, without boots.
‘Please don’t wake Luke again.’
I sat down on the bed and put my head in my hands. ‘I’m sorry. I should not have said that. But if you knew what was happening …’
I told her. At least, as much as I thought I could tell her. About Richard. About Cromwell ordering me to bring him back to London. He was giving me a second chance.
‘Second chance?’ she exclaimed, bewildered.
I sighed. I thought this would reassure her, bring us closer, but I had forgotten what I had told her, and what I had not. I stumbled on, growing more and more tired, more and more confused.
‘You mean – you didn’t give Richard’s letter to Cromwell?’
I was not sure what had happened when. ‘There was Liz … the funeral …’
‘Is that why we couldn’t find you that day? You were with him?’
I closed my eyes. Or perhaps they shut themselves. All I wanted to do was sleep. I may even have nodded off, but the sound of horses roused me. Cromwell’s last guests were leaving.
‘Is there anything else you haven’t told me?’
‘No. No. Well …’
I told her that the man Luke thought was the new ostler was no fantasy, but Richard. We were wrong to accuse Luke of lying when he said he did not take the horse out of the stable himself.
‘That man came here? He could have taken Luke?’
She could not look at me. She got into bed. The coverlet was shaking. She was as remote, as unattainable, as when I had first met her.
‘Don’t say any of this to Lucy,’ I said. ‘She’s working for Holles.’
She flung back the coverlet. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘She came to find out what I was doing at Cromwell’s.’
‘She came because she is concerned about me and Luke, which is more than you are. You heard what she said about Lord Stonehouse. Cromwell is leaving. You go in a few hours. She was my friend. The only person I could rely on and after tonight I can never look her in the face again. Now will you please go away and let me get some sleep.’
To get to my bedroom I had to go through my dressing room. I blundered through, then stopped, startled by a figure at my clothes chest. I had forgotten about George. Guiltily, he dropped back a pair of my best britches, muttering that he could not sleep with the row going on. Surely he was not going through my pockets? I did not care. I cared about nothing at that moment. All I wanted was oblivion. I dropped on my bed and it seemed only minutes later that George was shaking me by the shoulder.
A pale morning light was dispelling the shadows in Anne’s room. She had let the candle burn out and the acrid smell lingered. Sleep coloured her cheeks and her warmth drew out the smell of rosemary from the pomade she always kept under her pillow. One foot poked out and it seemed to me a miracle of a foot, small and perfectly formed. I could not believe I had once cursed it, in my misery at her laughing at my large, clumsy, monkey-like feet. I covered it, and kissed her gently.
‘I care for you and Luke more than anything else in the world,’ I whispered softly.
Her eyes remained closed and I was getting up to leave when she said, ‘Write an apology to Lucy and I will take it to her.’
‘No. I’m sorry. You must not go there. Lord Stonehouse will see that as a betrayal if she is with Holles.’ She tried to interrupt but I stopped her. ‘I must ask you to obey me in that. Anne. Do you hear?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will obey me?’
‘Yes. Yes!’
I sighed, feeling the prickle of sweat inside my shirt. I had never talked to her like that in my life before. ‘If anything happens and it is not safe here you will go to your father. Or better still, to Matthew and Kate in Spitall Fields.’
‘Spitall Fields?’ The word enraged her. She sprang up. ‘Spitall Fields Without?’ Outside the walls of the City was, to her, the end of civilisation. Beyond it. She had never been to Poplar, where Matthew had brought me up; nor would she let me take Luke there. ‘Half Moon Court?’ She looked round at the comfortable room, at the view of the orchard over the lane, at silver candlesticks, a Dutch vase containing roses from a bush she had planted, at a tapestry glinting with gold thread which I saw for the first time in the morning light, one Lord Stonehouse must have given her when I agreed to serve him. ‘I have what I have, and I will keep it. Half Moon Court? I left there five years ago, but you still seem to be living there.’
I left her without another word and, with a silent, puffy-eyed George, supped yesterday’s pottage, which Jane had warmed for us. She apologised for having no bread, the last of it having gone to Mrs Cromwell.
Jed was the only cheerful figure, whistling as he secured the packs to our horses, and gave us the old rallying cry he had shouted at Edgehill: ‘Recover your pikes and charge, lads!’
The words almost choked in my throat as I said goodbye to the old pikemaster. ‘Take care of them, Jed.’
‘Take care of them? I’d like to see who would touch a hair of their sweet heads when
I’m around!’ He held me in a grip that nearly squeezed every breath out of my body. ‘My arm is worth two – not to mention my portable pike.’
He swept his hook round, almost decapitating George who began to slip from his horse, until Jed dexterously slipped the hook into his belt and pulled him back. ‘Steady on, lad. You’re not even in battle yet.’
There was a sound of running feet and a shout. My heart leapt. Whatever our quarrels before parting, Anne always appeared at the last moment and everything righted itself. She could go to Lucy. She could do anything. I did not care, so long as she was in my arms.
It was Jane, chasing after Luke, still in his nightclothes. She lifted him, warm into my arms, smelling of sleep.
‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Are you going to kill him?’
I held him tightly. ‘Yes. There’s nothing to be frightened of any more.’
‘Kill who?’ said George, when we reached the top of the lane.
I made no answer, as we turned into the road north.
21
We scarcely spoke to one another until we changed horses at an inn near Bedford. From there we reckoned it was a two-hour ride to Holdenby House, where the King was held. The innkeeper, who was part of Lord Stonehouse’s network, warned us not to go near the next inn in the chain, The Green Man in Northampton. The county was strongly Puritan, and the landlord had gone over to Holles. The innkeeper added that he had served a group of mercenaries earlier that day. Their leader’s hooked nose bore a striking resemblance to mine.
‘Aquiline,’ I muttered automatically. George looked at me questioningly. ‘The Stonehouse nose. Richard is just ahead of us.’
George groaned and was for riding off immediately, but we were famished and the smell of the innkeeper’s boiled mutton was too much for us. Unwisely, we washed it down with his best barley beer, which he claimed was the strongest in England. I never used money to pay for our meals, but showed the ring and signed for what we had. For fear of thieves, I normally kept it in the knife holster in my boot. It was not there. I searched my pockets with increasing alarm. It was not just the doors that the ring opened for us; it was the worst possible omen to lose it. Or have it stolen.
Cromwell's Blessing Page 15
