‘An excellent plan, sir.’ Ostlers were aware of every traveller who passed through their yard. ‘Can you arrange it for me when the boy returns?’
The light was fading by the time we reached the tavern. I would have liked to send Warley ahead to Hitcham St Martin this evening to make sure that his grandmother’s house was secure. But it was too late for that. I could only hope that the Bishop and his servant would be reluctant to ride seventeen miles in the gathering darkness on an unknown road across the Fens.
We went up to Lady Quincy’s chamber, where the candles were already lit and the curtains drawn. It was a large, low room with sloping floors whose boards creaked at every step. I explained what had happened as fully as I could in the presence of Warley. She listened calmly, without interruption, sitting tranquilly with her hands folded in her lap as though listening attentively to a sermon.
‘I believe we must go to Hitcham St Martin as soon as we can, madam,’ I said. ‘I can’t be sure but it’s possible that others are already on their way.’
‘The Fens are not hospitable at night to those who do not know them,’ Warley said solemnly. ‘Even if they find a guide, which is by no means certain at such short notice.’
Lady Quincy nodded. ‘In that case, let us hope they haven’t,’ she said briskly. ‘We must leave as soon as we can in the morning. Mr Warley, we shall need to have a warrant signed by a justice if we are to travel unhindered on a Sunday. Can you apply to a magistrate on our behalf this evening? It would be foolish to allow some petty-minded official to delay us in the morning. A man of your standing in Cambridge could arrange the matter so much more easily than a stranger like Mr Marwood.’
He bowed, rising to the flattery, and said he would attend to it immediately.
‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘Would it not be wise if Mr Warley rode ahead tomorrow to warn them at Hitcham St Martin? They will want to prepare the house for us and—’
‘I’ll send a servant with a letter,’ Warley said. ‘He can leave at dawn. Then I can escort you.’
‘I think it would be better if you went yourself, sir,’ I said.
‘But why?’
‘In case these two men are on the road before us. Mistress Warley should be warned. And she may need a gentleman’s protection sooner than we think.’
An hour later, I went downstairs to give orders for our departure to the landlord and Lady Quincy’s servants.
‘Hitcham St Martin?’ the landlord said. ‘Not sure if you’ll get there in that great coach of yours. You wouldn’t in winter, sir, I tell you that.’
‘Are the roads that bad?’
‘All roads are bad in the Fens,’ he said with melancholy pride.
We heard raised voices at the entrance of the tavern. One of the maids was trying to prevent Jeremiah from entering. The kitchen boy was squeezed between her and the wall, screeching as if he were being murdered.
‘Let him pass,’ I called. ‘I sent for him.’ I turned back to the landlord. ‘He comes from Jerusalem with a message.’
The boy followed me upstairs and into Lady Quincy’s chamber. He had added the smell of fresh horse manure to his kitchen odours so I made him stand by the door.
‘Well?’ I said. ‘You may speak freely before this lady. First, how is Dr Burbrough?’
‘He’s awake, sir, but in much pain from a broken leg and the wound in his head. He said he slipped and fell as he was passing the mill. He was on his way to see the miller.’
‘And the two strangers?’
‘They was at the Duke’s Head today, master,’ Jeremiah said in an accent so broad I found it hard to follow him. ‘My uncle reckons the tall one’s a Yorkshireman, he knows what they sound like on account of him serving at Marston Moor, and they was all Yorkshire folk up there. Mean devils, he said, him and his servant, close as misers with their money, but you wouldn’t want to cross them.’
‘When did they get there?’ I asked.
‘This morning. The master went out on foot as soon as he got here. The servant dined early and then he went out too. But they came back together, late this afternoon, and they called for their horses.’ The kitchen boy grinned unexpectedly, revealing very white teeth with a gap where he had lost one of the upper ones. ‘My aunt died last winter, and Uncle’s courting the maid who does the tables in the taproom. And she said she heard them talking about whether they could reach Stretham before nightfall.’
‘Where’s that?’ asked Lady Quincy.
‘On the high road to Ely, mistress,’ the boy said, with a hint of surprise in his voice as if he had thought that everyone in the world must know where Stretham was.
His report was another piece of evidence to lend weight to a theory that was growing like a canker in my mind. I paid the boy for his trouble. He looked down at the silver coins in his dirty palm as if they were a miracle on a par with the loaves and fishes, which I suppose they were, for miracles are relative to circumstances: they depend on the context in which they occur.
‘Go,’ I said gently.
He snapped out of his trance and ran from the room. I closed the door behind him.
‘What did you give him?’ Lady Quincy said.
‘Two shillings.’
‘He’s only a kitchen boy.’ There was a hint of disapproval in her voice. ‘One shouldn’t spoil such people with kindness.’ Then she gave me a smile that made me feel suddenly, foolishly, breathlessly happy. ‘Will you sup with me, Mr Marwood? We have so much to discuss.’
A table was set up for us by the fire in Lady Quincy’s chamber.
Ann, her maid, tried to stay, but her mistress sent her away. Stephen, the little African, remained to pour the wine and preserve decorum, but for most of the time he sat almost invisible on a low stool in the shadows in the far end of the room.
Everything was in readiness for our departure in the morning. Mr Warley had sent Jeremiah back to us with our Sunday travel warrant, signed by a justice. He enclosed a note to me, saying that Dr Burbrough’s leg was badly broken in two places, and that he appeared confused, perhaps because of the blow to his head. The coachman and the postillion had made their preparations in the stables, and Ann had packed everything that could be packed before morning.
I helped myself to a dish of jellied eels. ‘Do you recall a servant by the name of Matthew Gorse, madam? At Barnabas Place.’
She wrinkled her forehead. ‘The name’s familiar.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Yes, I know. A sturdy fellow? With freckles all over his face?’
‘Yes. That’s the man.’
‘He attended my stepson for a while, I think. And sometimes he waited at table. Why?’
‘I met him the other day. He serves Lord Clarendon now.’
‘Had he anything to do with Edward’s murder?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, which was true enough as far as it went. ‘He’s disappeared.’
‘You said there’s a warrant out for my unfortunate niece. Do you think he helped her murder Edward? I fear it’s all too likely that she had help. After all, Edward was not a weakling.’
I wondered if Lady Quincy were right. I had assumed that if someone had bribed Gorse, it must have been Alderley. But in theory it could just as easily have been Cat. I said, ‘Do you remember anything between Gorse and your niece at Barnabas Place? Did he make himself useful to her? Run errands, perhaps?’
She shook her head. ‘I hardly remember him at all. We had so many servants there.’ She paused. ‘I wonder where Catherine is hiding herself.’
‘Who knows?’
‘Nothing would surprise me. She is such a strange, odd girl.’
‘And a resourceful one, too,’ I said drily.
We ate in silence for a moment. I watched Lady Quincy surreptitiously. Candlelight and firelight played on her face and made her skin shimmer.
She said abruptly, ‘Is Gorse allied to these men who have followed us to Cambridge?’
Her voice dragged me back from my folly. ‘I think it possible
,’ I said. ‘Likely, even.’
She lowered her voice. ‘Do they mean to do us harm?’
Prudence urged me to ration the information I shared with her, however much I wanted her to think kindly of me. I settled on a compromise with my wiser self. ‘I believe they mean mischief to Lord Clarendon. More than that I cannot say for sure.’
‘But they cannot be the principals in the matter, surely? Who are they working for?’
I shrugged. ‘His lordship has many enemies.’
‘Including the Duke of Buckingham, I think,’ she said.
I looked sharply at her. There was an innocent expression on her face.
‘This is just the sort of mad, fantastical scheme that would appeal to him,’ she went on. ‘He’s hated Lord Clarendon for years. I remember them in Bruges. They circled each other like dogs.’
‘In Bruges – during the exile?’ The King had lived in the Netherlands for a year or two before the Restoration, I remembered, under the protection of the Spanish authorities. He had held a threadbare court in Bruges. His brother had been there too, and the Duke of Buckingham for a time as well. All three men had been unmarried, and tales of the court’s licentiousness had circulated widely in England. ‘Were you there too?’
There was a momentary pause, and the flames trembled in her eyes as if she had jerked back her head in shock. ‘For a while. My first husband, Sir William, served the King on several diplomatic missions before the Restoration.’ She moistened her lips. ‘The Duke of Buckingham did not linger long in Bruges.’ She smiled at me, narrowing her eyes like a cat calculating its next move. ‘He could not see the profit in it, so he turned his coat and went to England to ingratiate himself with Cromwell and marry Fairfax’s daughter.’
‘Why does the King cherish him?’
‘Who knows? The King keeps his own counsel. He always does.’ She took a sip of wine and turned towards the fire. ‘But enough of this. I’m not sleepy yet, for all we must make an early start tomorrow.’
‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I could serve you so much better if I knew more of what this matter is about.’
She smiled at me. ‘Mr Marwood, you serve me very well as it is, and I am quite content.’
‘But what is it about this child – Frances, is it? Who has sent you to bring her to London? The King?’
‘It’s safer for you to know only what you need to know.’ She waved her hand, dismissing my concern, dismissing the King. ‘Shall we play cards? A hand of cribbage? Piquet?’
‘Forgive me, but I don’t know these games.’ My voice sounded sulky even to me. ‘I wasn’t permitted to play cards when I was younger, and since then I haven’t found the time to learn.’
‘I had quite forgotten you come from Puritan stock, sir. Then I shall teach you. You will grasp the rules of piquet in a trice.’ Lady Quincy raised her voice. ‘Stephen – rouse yourself and come here.’
The footboy detached himself from the shadows near the bed. Like a dusky ghost, he walked uncertainly towards us, rubbing his eyes.
‘Take that candle and fetch me the cards from the travelling case on the dressing table,’ she ordered. ‘Be careful not to knock anything over or drop wax on them.’ She added to me, ‘He’s dreadfully clumsy, you know, especially in the evenings.’
‘The boy’s tired,’ I said. ‘He should be in bed.’
‘You’re pleased to be droll. Stephen should stay awake when I need him. He is here to serve me, not to sleep when he feels like it.’
I said nothing. She burst out laughing. ‘You look so serious, sir.’ She leaned forward and added teasingly, ‘It makes you look like a child yourself. A child in a sulk.’
The words were insulting. But the way that she said them was a backhanded intimation of intimacy, simultaneously an insult and a caress.
The footboy laid the pack on the table in front of her and withdrew into the shadows. She sorted the cards into two piles.
‘Don’t be cross with me, sir. Mr Chiffinch tells me you are quite the rising man, and he is an acute judge of such things.’ She smiled at me, and I was dazzled yet again. ‘So I shall treat you with great respect from now on. Let us play.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
WE WERE ON the road by six o’clock in the morning, rumbling north from Cambridge. The landscape changed around us as we went, becoming progressively flatter and more watery. The coach swayed and bumped over potholes and ruts. Once we were stuck in the mud; we had to empty the coach and remove the luggage, before the six horses, the coachman and the postillion succeeded in getting us underway again.
‘What a wretched place this is,’ Lady Quincy murmured as she settled herself back in her corner. ‘It’s worse than the Low Countries.’
We set off once more, and I stared out of the window. The high road ran above the level of the Fens themselves, which were a waterlogged wasteland made up of pools of brown water, muddy-looking bushes and the occasional islet. There were few signs of life apart from waterbirds, whose melancholy cries and screeches made me long for the racket of London. We passed several farms; these were on higher ground or on land that had been drained by the digging of long straight ditches. The peasants were squat and sullen-faced. The worst of it was the sky – a grey dome that stretched for miles to the distant horizon in all directions. Clouds crawled slowly across its vault.
It had been cool when we started our journey, but the sun rose higher, so did the heat, and so did a closeness of the air that presaged a storm. We met no trouble on the way, apart from the mud, but I was glad when we came to Stretham, a small village built upon a low hillock. It was nearly ten o’clock, for the mud had delayed us. Warley had sent his bailiff to greet us at the only inn.
He eyed Lady Quincy’s coach with a doubtful air. ‘It will have to stay here, my lady. It’s too heavy and too wide for the road to Hitcham.’
‘Then we shall ride,’ she said calmly. ‘I shall enjoy the exercise. Is there a parlour where I may sit while you arrange the horses?’
A maid showed her into a gloomy room at the side of the house, with a window overlooking a farmyard. Ann and Stephen stayed with her. Meanwhile, I went to see about the horses and about transferring our luggage from the coach to a pair of carts, which the bailiff had commandeered for us.
Lady Quincy’s postillion came over to me in the yard. ‘They’re mighty curious here,’ he murmured. ‘They want to know who my lady is, what we’re doing here, and how long we’ll be here …’
‘More than you’d expect?’
‘It’s their way of showing it as much as anything, sir. As if …’
‘Someone had put them up to it?’
He nodded, and then shrugged. ‘Could be nothing. But maybe the mistress should know.’
‘Have they had other strangers passing through since yesterday evening?’ I asked. ‘I’m interested in a tall man, a Northerner by his voice, with his servant, a fat, greasy fellow.’
‘No, sir.’ He paused. ‘Or that’s what they said.’
The trouble with this underhand business, I thought as I went back into the inn, was that it made you suspicious of everything and everyone. Distrust breeds distrust. But the postillion was worth taking seriously. Like all Lady Quincy’s menservants, he seemed competent, even formidable. Given that Lady Quincy enjoyed a discreet connection with the King, it would not have surprised me to learn that her menservants had been appointed on the recommendation of Mr Chiffinch.
That led me to the uncomfortable thought that we might have an informer in our midst. After all, I had been charged to inform the King about Lady Quincy’s doings. Why should not Chiffinch have set someone to inform on me?
If our journey from Cambridge to Stretham had lowered my spirits, then those last few miles to Hitcham St Martin lowered them still further. The road was much narrower, often no more than a cart track and a muddy one at that – so much so that in two places I feared that our horses would sink to their bellies.
Lady Quincy had left the coachman to g
uard the coach and our own horses in Stretham. There were now five of us in our party, together with the bailiff. He led the way; then came her ladyship, followed by the postillion with Ann up before him. I rode last, with Stephen before me, clutching the saddle. With the boy so close to me, I realized how frail he was. The tumours of his scrofula seemed the most vital part of him.
Along the way I was relieved to meet Mr Warley, who had ridden out to escort us into the village. Lady Quincy greeted him, and straightaway asked him if there had been any strangers seen in the village in the last day or two.
‘No, madam,’ he said. ‘You must not trouble yourself about them. I shall hear at once if anyone is seen. They will not catch us unawares.’
We rode on, with Warley riding beside Lady Quincy. The clergyman and college fellow were less obvious in him than before: the land-owner was in the ascendant, and his pride in his land – and his water – burst out of him in a stream of plans he had for when the estate was finally his.
‘I shall cut a drain, madam, to run along here’ – flushed with enthusiasm, Warley pointed with his crop – ‘to here, which will drain another fifty or sixty acres. And when the land dries out, there will be no matching it for the richness of its soil in the length and breadth of England.’
At one point the path ran along the bank of a stretch of water, a shallow mere where gnats danced in dense clouds. The insects began to bite, seeming to find particular delight in the white flesh of Lady Quincy, who swore at them in a most unladylike fashion.
From here a causeway led to the village. The tower appeared, as squat as one of the inhabitants of these barbaric and waterlogged parts. Villagers stared at us through the open doorways of low cottages with thatched roofs made of reeds. Some of them pointed out Stephen to each other.
‘They have never seen an African,’ Warley explained to Lady Quincy. ‘Most of our peasants are what we call breedlings, which signifies that they were born and bred in these parts. Why, some of them have never ventured as far as Stretham, let alone Ely or Cambridge.’
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