I told the landlord that my Lady Quincy was of a nervous disposition. Frances and Ann the servant slept in her bedchamber. I made sure the window was shuttered and barred, and I set the postillion on the landing outside her door with a pistol and a cudgel. I was in the neighbouring room.
Stephen was still awake when I came up to our chamber. I had not tried to question him during our ride – he had dozed, or at least pretended to doze, for most of the way, closing his eyes and wrapping himself in silence as if it were a blanket. I crouched down by his mattress and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. He stared at me with wide eyes. He was breathing very quickly.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ I said. ‘But I want you to tell me what happened last night.’
He swallowed. ‘I couldn’t sleep, master. I – I heard you go out somewhere.’
I nodded, as if my absence had been nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Yes. And?’
‘I got up and looked out of the window in case … in case you were outside. I thought I might see you.’
Scared of being alone in the dark? Nothing strange in that. I had feared the night and its monsters myself at his age.
‘There was a moon, sir – enough to see a man in the orchard. It could have been you, but I wasn’t sure, and you’d told me to keep a watch for strangers. So I went down to see.’
He was sitting up in bed and the candlelight picked out the whites of his eyes and his teeth. His courage humbled me, and so did the thought that he had wanted to please me so much that it had outweighed his fears.
‘When I was in the orchard, I tripped over the dog and the man seized me, and took me away and into the boat. He said he would cut my throat if I cried out, and he carried me to the island where there was the other man.’
‘But why?’
‘They wanted to question me. They wanted to know where Mistress Frances was. Which chamber she was lying in, whether she was alone. But I couldn’t tell them.’
‘Two men. Did you see them properly?’
He shook his head. ‘The moon had gone in. Big men, I think. The one who brought me was fat. The other one was the master. He said it was too late to do anything, it would soon be growing light, and they should leave me here.’
‘Did they hurt you?’ I asked.
‘No. The fat man asked if he should try persuasion, but his master said no, it would not answer as I was as much a stranger here as they were, and he believed I was telling the truth. So they left me in that place and went away in their boat.’ He began to tremble. ‘It was so cold, sir. I thought I would die.’
I patted his arm. ‘You did well. Go to sleep.’
Stephen must have been bone-weary. He fell asleep almost at once. I built up the fire and sat before it, wrapped in my cloak. My body was tired but my mind was as restless as a dog with fleas.
The Bishop and his servant were probably on their way back to London, but I could not run the risk of their making another attempt to seize Mistress Frances. Their abortive foray last night had been reckless in the extreme. I guessed that the Bishop’s servant had intended to waylay the kitchen maid when she came down to light the fire at dawn, and force her to show him Mistress Frances’s chamber. Then the sudden appearance of Stephen in the garden had forced him to retreat.
I wondered how Cat was faring in London, and prayed that she was safe.
Next day, we climbed into her ladyship’s coach and set off for London. There were five of us – Lady Quincy, her maid, the two children and myself – and we had a silent journey in its swaying interior. Frances’s eyes were red, and she looked as if she had had little sleep. Her mother, sitting in the opposite corner, glanced at her from time to time, her own face as revealing as a shuttered house.
At first, Lady Quincy tried to engage Frances in conversation. She talked of the wonders of London, of the King’s court, the shops, the theatres, and the outings on the river. Frances nodded occasionally and made the shortest possible answers when her mother appealed to her directly. Frances, I thought, had become more than a pawn in a political intrigue: Lady Quincy also wanted the girl for herself; she had suddenly discovered that she was a mother in need of a daughter.
It was the middle of the afternoon when the coach turned into Cradle Alley and stopped at Lady Quincy’s door. There was a bustle outside as the servants made ready for their mistress. I climbed out and handed Lady Quincy down. She smiled at me as she took my hand. Frances, Ann and Stephen followed her up the steps to the house.
Lady Quincy paused in the doorway. Frances was beside her, and her mother’s hand rested on her shoulder.
‘Thank you for escorting us, Mr Marwood. I am much obliged to you. Goodbye.’
The door closed. The servants were unloading the luggage from the coach. As it was still broad daylight, I hired a boy to carry my bag and walked with him behind me through the ruins of the city to Fleet Street, and thence to the Savoy. After the confinement of the coach, I was glad of the exercise at first, for my muscles were still aching from the riding.
The sky was grey, pressing down on London, heavy with the promise of rain. I felt like a man who had emerged from a bout of fever. As I walked through the streets, the city around me seemed provisional and transitory, neither what it had been nor what it would become. It was broad daylight, so there were plenty of people among the ruins and temporary shelters and half-made houses. But even the most respectable and wealthy of them had an impermanent air, like gypsies and beggars and other men who lack a settled home. The Fire had left its mark on the inhabitants of London, as well as on its buildings.
My spirits were depressed. It was not until I reached Cheapside that I allowed myself to admit the reason. For nearly a year I had carried round with me the thought of Olivia, Lady Quincy. She had been the focus of my desires and, on another level, in my barely acknowledged dreams, the heroine in the drama of my future life.
All that was gone, partly by my own wish. She hadn’t made a fool of me. She hadn’t twisted me around her little finger so that I would commit any knavery for her that she cared to ask. I had done that for her all by myself.
No more. The spell was broken. But there was an absence within me. Nothing filled the place where she had been. I had lost something, as surely as if a surgeon had sliced me open and cut out a vital organ. Here, among the ruins of London, I was like a newborn child, naked in the bright light of day and alone in the company of strangers.
I smelled the ale on Sam’s breath when I entered the hall of my house. He pushed the door shut with his crutch. I dropped my bag on the floor and tossed my cloak to him.
He caught it nimbly, draped it over his shoulder and executed a clumsy bow. ‘A gentleman called to see you, sir. Twice. Name of Milcote.’
‘Did he leave a message?’
‘No, sir. Only to say that he called. He was quite put out you weren’t here.’
That sounded ominous. Perhaps there was news about Clarendon’s missing servant, Matthew Gorse. I toyed with the idea of going immediately to Clarendon House in search of Milcote. But if there was news, it was probably bad and it would surely keep until the morning. So too would my inevitable meeting with Mr Chiffinch at Whitehall.
‘Anyone else? Or anyone showing signs of interest in my house? Asking questions? Watching?’
‘No one,’ he said with a hint of disappointment.
‘Tell Margaret I’m back. I’ll have supper early. Light a fire in the parlour. And bring up a bottle of the Rhenish wine from Mr Newcomb.’ I changed my mind about the last item, not wishing to trust Sam with the key of the closet where I kept my wine. ‘On second thoughts, I shall bring it up myself.’
He gave me an injured look, perfectly understanding my change of mind, and hobbled away.
I felt better when I had eaten. When I had finished, Margaret came to clear the table. I beckoned her over to where I was sitting by the fire with the last of the wine at my elbow.
‘Mistress Hakesby?’ I said softly. ‘How does she do with y
our friend Dorcas?’
‘All’s well, sir. Though God knows, Dorcas’s lodging is no place for one such as her.’
I suspected that in Margaret’s estimation, no one’s lodging would have been good enough for Catherine Lovett. ‘And is she helping with the Gazette?’
She nodded. ‘Aye, master, she helped Dorcas with yesterday’s round. You wouldn’t recognize her, with her face all dark, and a ragged old cloak and a shawl over her head.’
‘I want to talk to her as soon as possible.’ There was a chance that Cat could tell me more about Gorse and the events leading up to Edward Alderley’s death. Also, if I were entirely frank with myself, I was curious to discover if I felt differently about her since her unexpected intrusion into my mind while I was in Lady Quincy’s bed. My curiosity was purely academic, for if all went well she would soon be married to Master Hakesby.
‘She and Dorcas will be at Mr Newcomb’s tomorrow morning, sir, to collect their bundles.’
‘On a Wednesday?’ I said. The usual Gazette days were Monday and Thursday.
‘It’s because Mr Newcomb’s having a new press installed on Thursday. They had to change the day.’
Mr Newcomb was the government printer whose work included the lucrative Gazette contract; hence the present of Rhenish wine he had given me. I had lodged with him for a few months when my father was still alive. On Gazette days his apprentice distributed the bundles early in the morning to the women who took them about London. The process was supervised by his journeyman, who at the same time paid the women for the distribution of the last issue.
I briefly considered telling Margaret to send a message to Dorcas, asking her to call with Cat at Infirmary Close after they had collected their bundles. Then I had another thought.
‘What time do they fetch their bundles?’
‘Six o’clock, sir. Mr Newcomb likes them to be prompt.’
‘We have had our difficulties with distribution, as you know,’ I said. ‘Mr Williamson is most concerned. I shall make an unannounced inspection tomorrow morning on his behalf. There’s no need to mention that to anyone.’
Margaret stared at me, screwing up her features as she often did when she was thinking. She was a long way from being a fool. I waved her away.
CHAPTER FORTY
CAT WAS RUNNING late. Yesterday, Dorcas had sprained her ankle when she had stumbled into the gutter that carried the refuse down the centre of Carter Lane near St Paul’s. She had also spoiled the remaining sheets of Monday’s Gazette, which were wet and foul from the gutter. By this time, they had distributed the newspaper over most of their assigned round. Cat had helped Dorcas back to her lodging in an alley off Fenchurch Street. After that, it had been too late for her to collect fresh copies from the Savoy and complete the round by herself.
She was doing it today, leaving Dorcas to rest. But the task had taken much longer than she had expected. It was nearly half-past four by the time she reached the Green Dragon Inn, or rather what was left of it after the Fire. The landlord was running the business as best he could in the ruins of his establishment, with a temporary roof over the ordinary, which had a long table where anyone might sit and dine on the dishes of the day if they had the money.
Cat gave the landlord his copy, and he swore at her because it was late. She dodged a predatory ostler and went into the street. The Green Dragon was on the corner of Thames Street and Botolph Lane. Her next destination was Botolph’s Wharf below Mary Hill.
She glanced up the lane and felt a stab of emotion, fear probably. There was Mr Milcote, Lord Clarendon’s gentleman, walking towards her.
It was a piece of ill-luck. She ducked back into what remained of the inn’s stable. Much as she would like to ask Milcote a few questions, she couldn’t afford to let him see her.
He strode past, not giving her a glance. Her relief was tempered by the strangeness of his appearance. His clothes were dark and shabby. He wasn’t wearing his sword. Even his bearing was altered, she thought, for his shoulders were bowed and his eyes cast down. He wore a deep, wide hat, and under the brim she glimpsed his profile as he passed. His face looked paler than usual and perhaps worried, even miserable. She wondered what business a man like Milcote could possibly have in this mean and ruinous part of the city?
The following morning Cat had another shock, another unexpected encounter, this time at Mr Newcomb’s printing house. She and Dorcas were among the crowd waiting to be paid for the last delivery, and to receive the next.
There was Marwood standing in the doorway. Cat ducked her head at once. She watched him from the corner of her eye. She saw him sniff. The air smelled strongly of ink, wet and newly applied to paper. A printing house must be familiar territory for him, she realized, dense with childhood memories.
At the sight of him, noise and movement ebbed away, leaving an uneasy silence. The room was packed, mainly with women. They were of all ages, most of them swathed in shawls and cloaks against the early morning chill. They looked at him, then rapidly away. They stood more stiffly than before, as if afraid a sudden movement might break something.
This was power, Cat thought, or at least power of a sort; and she didn’t much like it. Marwood was Mr Williamson’s clerk and the man who gave Newcomb the printer his orders; he had the power to take away their livelihoods with the snap of his fingers.
In the silence, he glanced about the room, as if savouring his control over them. ‘Carry on,’ he said, and his voice sounded harsh in her ears. ‘There’s no time to be wasted.’
A wooden counter stained with ink was set at right angles to the door, with Mr Newcomb’s journeyman and his apprentice behind it. The journeyman was paying the women for Monday’s round. The women signed their names – or more usually made a cross or a thumbprint – on his list to record the receipt of their wages.
The apprentice had another list in front of him, which recorded the various routes around London, the numbers of copies and the names of those who carried them. Beyond him, at the end of the counter nearer the door to the print shop itself, was a small, inky boy, one of Mr Newcomb’s brood, who brought out the bundles of newspapers and gave them to each woman as the apprentice ticked them off.
Mr Marwood and Mr Williamson insisted that everything be done in a certain way, Dorcas had told her, and that proper records be kept of the Gazette’s production. Each sheet of paper was kept, and every six months they were bound into a book, together with a detailed account of the monies disbursed on behalf of the King. Dorcas had told Cat this with pride, as if the record-keeping connected her directly with the King, as if he personally inspected each sheet, each entry in the accounts.
Marwood went behind the counter. He made a show of inspecting the lists and checking the amounts of money the journeyman was disbursing.
‘Continue,’ he said. ‘I wish to study the procedure.’
He leaned against the wall and watched. The women shuffled up to the counter in ones and twos. At last it was the turn of Cat and Dorcas, a little woman with skin like a walnut shell. Cat kept her eyes down. She watched the journeyman counting out the money from his leather pouch. Dorcas signed for it with a scrawled cross. Cat scratched a pair of illegible initials, unlike her usual handwriting, which was notably well-formed and clear.
The two women moved along to the apprentice and finally to the printer’s boy. As he was handing them their bundles of the Gazette, Marwood rapped his knuckles on the counter. The boy froze.
‘I shall inspect one of those bundles,’ he said. ‘They look slim to me.’ He glanced down at the apprentice’s list. ‘There should be fifty in each. We shall see, won’t we?’
The journeyman cleared his throat. ‘I swear they’re all there, sir, down to the last copy. Mr Newcomb’s most particular.’
‘There’s no harm in making sure,’ Marwood said. ‘You don’t disagree with me, I take it?’
‘No, sir, beg pardon, I’m sure.’
Marwood glanced about, pretending to survey the roo
m before making his choice. ‘This one.’ He indicated Cat with his finger. ‘You. It’s too busy here – come into the passage and I’ll watch you count your bundle.’
Cat felt her colour rising. Beside her, Dorcas stiffened and sent Marwood a hostile glance before lowering her head. The old woman probably attributed Marwood’s motive to lust rather than attention to business, and so would almost everyone else in the room.
Cat followed him into the passage. He told her to close the door. That was when she lost her temper. What a vain coxcomb Marwood was, strutting about in the printing house as if he owned it and everyone it contained, including her. She glared at him.
‘They’ll think you’re stealing kisses from me and fumbling at my clothes,’ she hissed. ‘How dare you?’
‘Better that than the truth,’ Marwood said. ‘I got back to London yesterday evening. I need to talk privately with you before I go to Whitehall. Untie the bundle in case anyone comes.’
Her fingers fumbled at the twine, tugging viciously at the knot.
‘How are you faring?’ he said quietly.
‘Well enough.’ She stared at him. ‘I can’t say I’ve much enjoyment in life at present, but no one’s troubled me.’ Her lips tightened. ‘Apart from you, of course. Where have you been? I thought you’d forgotten me.’
‘After we came back from Woor Green, the King sent for me. The very same evening.’
‘Dear God – he knows about me?’
‘Not that you’re here. He still believes you’re responsible for your cousin’s death, I think, though it’s hard to tell what’s truly in his mind. But he didn’t summon me about the murder. He commanded me to accompany Lady Quincy down to Cambridgeshire. We left London at dawn on Friday.’
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