Also by Susanna Gregory
The Matthew Bartholomew Series
A Plague on Both Your Houses
An Unholy Alliance
A Bone of Contention
A Deadly Brew
A Wicked Deed
A Masterly Murder
An Order for Death
A Summer of Discontent
A Killer in Winter
The Hand of Justice
The Mark of a Murderer
The Tarnished Chalice
To Kill or Cure
The Thomas Chaloner Series
A Conspiracy of Violence
Blood on the Strand
COPYRIGHT
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12454-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 Susanna Gregory
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
www.hachette.co.uk.
Contents
Also by Susanna Gregory
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Historical Note
To Peter Carey
Prologue
Smithfield Meat Market, October 1663
The solicitor Thomas Newburne knew he was not a popular man, but he did not care. Why should he, when he had everything he wanted – a lovely mansion on Old Jewry, a pleasant cottage on Thames Street, cellars stuffed with fine wines, and more gold than he could spend in a lifetime? He glanced at the man walking at his side. People liked Richard Hodgkinson, because he was affable and good-hearted, but had his printing business made him wealthy, allowed him to buy whatever he fancied and not worry about the cost? No, they had not, and Newburne could not help but despise him for it.
‘Let me buy you another pie, Hodgkinson,’ he said, making a show of rummaging in his loaded purse for coins. He was aware of several rough types eyeing him speculatively, but he was not afraid of them. He was legal adviser to the infamous Ellis Crisp, and only a fool would risk annoying the man everyone called the Butcher of Smithfield. Cutpurses and robbers could look all they liked, but none would dare lift a finger against the Butcher’s right-hand man.
‘I have had enough to eat, thank you,’ replied Hodgkinson politely. ‘It was good of you to invite me to spend a few hours with you.’
Newburne inclined his head in a bow. Of course Hodgkinson appreciated his hospitality. Newburne was the ascending star in Smithfield, and Hodgkinson should be grateful that the solicitor had deigned to acknowledge him, and spoil him with little treats. Of course, Newburne would have preferred to be with his one true friend, a shy, retiring fellow by the name of Finch, but Finch was off playing his trumpet to some wealthy patron, and so was unavailable. Newburne had not wanted to be alone that afternoon – it was much more fun spending money when someone else was watching – so he had asked Hodgkinson to join him instead. It was a good day for a stroll – the first dry one they had had in weeks, and they were not the only ones taking advantage of it. The Smithfield meat market was packed, a lively, noisy chaos of shops, taverns, stocks and brothels.
‘My stomach hurts,’ Newburne said, not for the first time during the outing. ‘You said gingerbread would soothe it, but I feel worse.’
Hodgkinson looked sympathetic. ‘You drank a lot of wine earlier, and I thought the cake might soak up some of the sour humours. Perhaps you should take a purge.’
Newburne waved the advice aside; the printer did not know what he was talking about. ‘I shall have a bit of this cucumber instead. Cucumbers are said to be good for gripes in the belly, although I cannot abide the taste.’
‘They are unpleasant,’ agreed Hodgkinson. He pointed suddenly, and his voice dropped to a low, uneasy whisper. ‘There is the Butcher, out surveying his domain.’
Newburne glanced to where a man, hooded and cloaked as usual, prowled among the market stalls. Even Crisp’s walk was menacing, light and soft, like a hunter after prey, and people gave him a wide berth as he passed. He was surrounded by the louts who did his bidding, members of the powerful gang called the Hectors. They were another reason why no one tended to argue with the Butcher of Smithfield, and even Newburne was a little uneasy in their company, although he would never have admitted it to anyone else.
‘I am told he killed a man yesterday,’ he said conversationally to Hodgkinson. He smiled, despite the ache in his stomach. The Butcher knew how to keep people in line, and Newburne fully approved of his tactics. It was refreshing to work for someone who was not afraid to apply a firm hand when it was needed. ‘By that slaughterhouse over there.’
Hodgkinson swallowed uneasily. ‘I heard. Apparently, the fellow objected to the way he runs things. I suppose that explains why Crisp’s shop is so full of pies and sausages this morning.’
Newburne nodded, glancing across to where the emporium in question was curiously devoid of customers, although everywhere else was busy. He was never sure whether to believe the rumours that circulated regarding how Crisp disposed of his dead enemies. Most of Smithfield thought them to be true, though, which served to make the Butcher more feared than ever, and that was not a bad thing as far as Newburne was concerned. Frightened folk were easier to control than ones who were puffed up with a sense of their own immortality.
Hodgkinson shuddered, and began to walk in another direction, away from the Butcher and his entourage. ‘Look! Dancing monkeys! I have not seen those in years.’
Newburne took a bite of the cucumber as he stood in the little crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle. He was beginning to feel distinctly unwell, and thought he might be sick. He swallowed the mouthful with difficulty, and started to take another. Suddenly, there was a searing pain in his innards, one that felt like claws tearing him apart from the inside. He groaned and dropped to his knees, arms clutching his middle. He could hear Hodgkinson saying something, but could not make out the words. Then he was on his back, in the filth of the street. People were looking away from the performing animals to stare at him, although no one made any attempt to help. Hodgkinson was shouting for someone to bring water, but all Newburne cared about was the terrible ache in his belly. He could not breathe, and his vision was darkening around the edges. And then everything went black, and the printer’s clamouring voice faded into silence.
Chapter 1
London, Late October 1663
A combination of chiming bells and hammering rain woke Thomas Chaloner that grey Sunday morning. At first, he did not know where he was, and he sat up with a jolt, automatically reaching for the dagger at his side. The realisation that he did not need it, that he was safe in his rooms at Fetter Lane, came just after the shock of discovering that his weapon was not where it had been these last four months, and it took a
few moments to bring his instinctive alarm under control. He lay back on his bed, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, and forced himself to relax. He was at home, not working in enemy territory on the Spanish–Portuguese border, and the bells were calling the faithful to their weekly devotions, not warning of an imminent attack.
He pushed back the blanket and walked to the window. In the street below, Fetter Lane was much as it had been when he had left the city back in June. Carts still creaked across its manure-carpeted cobbles, impeded that morning by the rainwater that formed a fast-moving stream down one side, and the Golden Lion tavern still stood opposite, its sign swinging gently in the wind and its sleepy-eyed patrons just beginning to emerge from a night of dark talk and conspiracy. The recently installed Royalist government was uneasy about the seditious discussions it believed took place in the many coffee houses that were springing up all over London, but Chaloner thought half the country’s dissidents could be eradicated in one fell swoop if the Golden Lion was monitored – and probably half its criminals, too. He did not think he had ever encountered a place that was such a flagrant haven for felons and mischief-makers.
He almost jumped out of his skin when something brushed against his leg, and he reached for his knife a second time; but it was only the stray cat that had attached itself to him on his journey home from Lisbon. He assumed its affection was hunger-driven, until he spotted the remains of a rat near the hearth; the animal had evidently despaired of being fed and had procured its own breakfast. It rubbed his leg again, then jumped on to the window sill and began to wash itself.
Dawn had broken, and people were walking, riding or being driven to church. Chaloner supposed he had better join them, not because he had any burning desire for religion, but because he did not want to draw attention to himself with unorthodox behaviour. After a decade of Puritan rule, the newly reinstated bishops were eager to assert the authority of the traditional Church, and anyone not attending the Sunday services laid himself open to accusations of nonconformism. Like most spies, Chaloner tried to keep a low profile, and aimed to do all that was expected of him in the interests of maintaining anonymity.
The travelling clothes he had been wearing for the last three weeks were tar-stained and stiff with sea-salt, so he knelt by the chest at the end of the bed and rummaged about for something clean. He was horrified to discover that moths and mice had been there before him, and that what had been a respectable wardrobe was now a mess of holes and shreds. It was not that he particularly enjoyed donning splendid costumes, but his work as an intelligence officer meant that he was required to dress to a certain standard in order to gain access to the places where he needed to be. If he went to the Palace of White Hall – where the King lived and his ministers had their offices – clad in rags, the guards would refuse to let him in.
Eventually, he found a blue long-coat with silver buttons, knee-length breeches and a laced shirt that had somehow escaped the creatures’ ravages. ‘Lacing’ was a recent – and to his mind foppish – fashion, and he disliked the sensation of extraneous material flapping around his wrists and neck, but at least it provided convenient hiding places for the various weapons he always carried. Over the coat went the sash that held his sword; no gentlemen ever left home without a sword. His hat was black with a wide brim and a conical dome, and looked unremarkable. However, it had been given to him by a lady he had befriended in Spain, and its crown had been cleverly reinforced with a skin of steel. In a profession where sly blows to the head were not uncommon, he felt it was sure to prove useful.
He stumbled over a warped floorboard as he headed for the door, and a quick glance around the rented rooms he called home – an attic chamber containing a bed, two chairs, a chest and a table, and an adjoining pantry-cum-storeroom – told him that the subsidence he had first noticed at Christmas had grown a lot more marked during the four months he had been away. A fire in the house next door was to blame, and he was surprised the city authorities had not ordered his building to be demolished, too. The roof leaked, his windows no longer closed, and there was a distinct list to his floor. He only hoped that if – when – it did collapse, he would not be in it.
He walked swiftly down the stairs to the ground floor, the cat at his heels. He did not tiptoe deliberately, but stealth was second nature to a spy, and his sudden, soundless appearance startled his landlord, Daniel Ellis. Ellis was standing in front of a tin mirror, trying to see whether his wig was on straight in the dim light of the hall.
‘Lord!’ Ellis exclaimed, hand to his heart. ‘I did not hear you coming. I must be growing deaf.’
Ellis had been genuinely pleased to see his tenant return the previous evening. The speed of Chaloner’s departure – which had barely left him time to pack a bag; he had actually missed the ship he had been ordered to catch, and had been obliged to pay a riverman to row after it – had left Ellis with the impression that Chaloner might not come back. And there had been rent owing.
Chaloner gesticulated upwards. ‘Did you know the ceiling in my room—’
‘There is nothing wrong with my house,’ interrupted Ellis, in a way that told Chaloner he was probably not the first to complain. ‘Rats have a penchant for wood, as I have told you before, and they always gnaw beams when folk leave their rooms unoccupied for long periods of time. Of course, now you have a cat, rodents will no longer be a problem.’
Chaloner could have argued, but the chambers suited him well for a number of reasons. First, the subsidence had allowed him to negotiate a low rent, which was important to a man whose employer sometimes forgot to pay him. Secondly, Fetter Lane was a reasonably affluent street and its householders kept it lit at night – a spy always liked to be able to see what was happening outside his home. And finally, it was convenient for White Hall, where his master, the Earl of Clarendon worked.
‘Some letters came when you were gone,’ said Ellis, retrieving a bundle of missives from the chest under the mirror. ‘I was going to give them to your next of kin.’
‘You thought I was dead?’
Ellis became a little defensive. ‘It was not an unreasonable assumption – you left very abruptly, and then there was no news of you for months. I heard you playing your viol last night, by the way. At least the rats did not eat that.’
Chaloner would not have been pleased if they had. Playing the bass viol, or viola de gamba, was the thing he had missed above all else during his time away. Music soothed him and cleared his mind when he needed to concentrate, and although Isabella – the lady who had provided him with the hat and other comforts in Portugal – had arranged for him to borrow an instrument, it was not the same as playing his own. He took the letters from Ellis as his landlord locked the front door behind them.
There were five messages, which included three from his family in Buckinghamshire. He opened these first and scanned them quickly, afraid, as always, that a missive from home might carry bad news. All was well, though, and his brother was only demanding to know why he had not written. The fourth note was from his friend, the surveyor–mathematician William Leybourn, inviting him to dine with him and the woman he intended to marry. A date of the twentieth of July was scrawled at the bottom, and Chaloner wondered whether he might find Leybourn wed when he went to visit. He hoped so: Leybourn was always whining about not having a wife.
The fifth and last had been written just two days before, and was from a musician called Thomas Maylord. Maylord had been a close friend of Chaloner’s father, and had played for Oliver Cromwell’s court; when the Commonwealth had collapsed and King Charles II had reclaimed his throne three years before, Maylord had somehow managed to persuade the Royalists to keep him on. The letter was brief, and begged the spy for a meeting at his earliest convenience. The tone was curt, almost frightened, and very unlike the amiable violist. It was unsettling, and Chaloner supposed he had better find out what was distressing the old man as soon as he could.
St Dunstan-in-the-West was a large, stalwart church wit
h a big square tower and a walled graveyard that jutted out into Fleet Street – much to the annoyance of carters and hackney-drivers, who tended to collide with it in foggy weather. It was full that morning, as people crowded inside to hear Rector Thompson preach a sermon about original sin. It was probably an erudite and well-argued discourse, but Thompson mumbled and there were so many babies and small children screaming that very little of his homily could be heard. Chaloner leaned against a pillar, folded his arms and thought that obligatory appearances at Sunday services was one aspect of home he had not missed at all.
Also bored, Ellis began to tell Chaloner about the foul weather that had beset the city while the spy had been away. Chaloner glanced around and saw the landlord was not the only one to be talking while Thompson pontificated in his pulpit. Behind them, two merchants discussed the imminent arrival of a consignment of French wine, while the man in front had his arms around two women, and was enjoying a conversation that was bawdy and far from private.
‘You did not say where you have been,’ said Ellis, when Chaloner made no comment on his dreary monologue of storms, rain and drizzle. ‘Was it far?’
‘I visited Dover,’ replied Chaloner ambiguously. He was fortunate in that Ellis seldom quizzed him about the odd hours he kept, or the disguises he often donned. The landlord believed him to be a victualling clerk for the Admiralty, an occupation so staid and dull that few people ever wanted to know about it. Unfortunately, though, even Ellis’s incurious nature was goaded into asking about a sudden and abrupt departure that had lasted nigh on four months.
‘Dover?’ echoed Ellis, scratching his head. There were lice in his periwig. ‘In Kent?’
‘The navy has business there,’ hedged Chaloner. Careful phrasing meant he was not actually lying, because his ship had stopped in Dover before sailing for Lisbon. He supposed there was no reason why he should not tell people that he had been on official business in Portugal and Spain, but he had been trained to keep confidences to a minimum and, after a decade in espionage, it was a difficult habit to break.
The Butcher Of Smithfield: Chaloner's Third Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner Book 3) Page 1
