The Licence of War

by Claire Letemendia

  At one side of the street was a baker’s shop, and opposite, a tavern. Recklessly he chose the tavern. But at the threshold, he halted: why was the name familiar to him? Then he remembered.

  The taproom was full of custom. He pushed through until he found a serving girl, and grabbed her sleeve. “Is Mistress Sprye here today?”

  She shook him off with an indignant air. “Who are you to ask?”

  “I’m Ned Price’s brother – tell Sue I’ve brought the money I owe her,” he said, imitating Price’s accent. “Go on, then. I haven’t got all day.”

  While waiting, he picked up a crumpled pamphlet from the floor. The papist conspiracy was now called Brooke’s plot, he read, after Sir Basil Brooke, one of the Catholics who had secretly approached the Lord Mayor and Members of the City Corporation. These officials had informed Parliament directly of His Majesty’s overtures. And this past Thursday, the eleventh of January, the author of the pamphlet declared in bombastic style, City Councillors, both Houses of Parliament, Scottish Commissioners, Independent divines, army commanders, and even a few Dutch ambassadors had dined together at the Merchants’ Hall in a public show of thanksgiving and unity, as citizens had built a bonfire in Cheapside to burn idolatrous trinkets and images, and rejoice at their delivery from evil. Out of the long list of dignitaries who had participated at the thanksgiving feast, two names caught Laurence’s eye: that of his old enemy, the Earl of Pembroke, and that of Sir Montague Hallam of the Vintners’ Company.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked round.

  “I am Mistress Sprye, and who are you, sir?” She confronted him, hands on her hips. “You ain’t any kin of Ned’s, that I’d swear.”

  “No, but I am bringing you money. Where is he?”

  “He’s gone out of town. Who are you? You’re not … you can’t be … Mr. Beaumont?” she mouthed. Laurence nodded shortly. “He went to Oxford, sir, to see you.”

  Laurence swore. “When?”

  “Five days ago.”

  “Did he have news for me?”

  “If he did, he didn’t tell me. Sir,” she said, glancing around, “we can’t talk here. I’ll get my cloak, and then you follow me out.”

  She returned in seconds, and left the taproom at a brisk pace. Laurence pursued her, as she wove her way from the main thoroughfare of Ludgate into smaller streets, and then into alley upon alley, parallel to the river. He smelt rotten fish in the air, and the buildings around grew more and more wretched and dilapidated. Finally she slowed and crossed a muddy yard where a pack of children armed with sticks were beating a ragged youth twice their size. “Kill the priest! Kill the priest!” they shrieked. He was struggling to fend them off, saliva trailing down his chin; and in his face, Laurence saw a pathetic innocence.

  “You little bastards, leave him alone,” yelled Laurence, brandishing a pistol, at which they dropped their sticks and fled. The youth watched them incuriously, and proceeded to wet himself, with no apparent sign of awareness.

  “Mr. Beaumont!” Mistress Sprye signalled Laurence over to a passage in a decayed tenement, and pushed open a door. “Our lodgings, sir,” she said, visibly ashamed; at once stuffy and cold, the room was about the size of the bed that occupied it.

  Laurence sat down on the bed. Something clunked against his foot: a bottle of wine. “May I?” He unplugged it and drank. “So Price and I just missed each other.”

  “Yes, sir.” She sat down also, leaving a careful space between herself and Laurence, and wrinkled her brow at him. “Ned described you as very black, sir, but I thought you would be older, and … and much grander.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Laurence said, laughing.

  “Oh, sir, what will he do when he doesn’t find you? I hope he hurries home. We’re to be wed.” She blushed. “We’ve a child coming.”

  “My congratulations. He must be pleased,” Laurence remarked, disingenuously.

  “He wasn’t when I told him. To be honest, sir, I’m not as sure of his affections as I’d like to be. Oh forgive me, sir – here you are, an important nobleman, and I’m blabbing out my woes to you. I wouldn’t, if you hadn’t shown the kindness to chase those brats away from that poor simple boy. They’ll be the death of him one day.”

  She started to cry. For both herself and her unborn child, Laurence suspected, annoyed with Price, though his own past in that regard was far from irreproachable. He took a purse out of his saddlebag and pressed it into her hands. “You should find better lodgings, or this place will be the death of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She sniffed, and tucked it into her skirt pocket. “There’s something you should know. That day I told Ned about the babe, he left in the morning, and got home later excited, as if he had a fever. He’d money from a man who owed him, and he asked me to buy him a handsome meat pie. So I did, sir. But when I came back from the Saracen’s Head round curfew, Ned hadn’t touched a crumb. Turns out he’d bought it for a friend. And he asked me to take it over, sir, the next day.”

  “Where to?”

  “Winchester House. It was for the keeper, a Mr. Devenish.”

  “Oh,” said Laurence, as if this meant nothing to him. “Was Mr. Devenish grateful?”

  “No, sir, he didn’t say a thing to me. Ned hung about a whole day – he couldn’t sit still. He said he was expecting a message of thanks. When none arrived, he set off for Oxford. Sir,” she went on, after a brief silence, “you don’t look much like most people, and the militia will be watching for strangers. You could stay here, sir, if you have to. Though it’s not fit for a man such as yourself, at least you’d be safe.”

  A convenient refuge, Laurence thought; he had hidden in far worse. But it would be unfair on Sue. Although she did not know it, she had already dipped a toe into the shark-infested waters of espionage. “I can’t. Thank you, all the same,” he said. “I must leave you now.”

  “Where will you go, sir?”

  How many times Laurence had been posed that question, and had no real answer. Yet the pamphlet was giving him an idea so outrageous that the more he considered it, the more attractive it became.

  The equerry escorted Laurence through a hall hung with pictures as impressive as those in Lord Beaumont’s collection, and into a carpeted reception room. In a robe trimmed with ermine, the Earl of Pembroke sat in an armchair, his walking cane beside him. As in Laurence’s dream, he resembled an ancient bird of prey, with his wrinkled, desiccated face and prominent nose; the thin fringe on his forehead could not disguise incipient baldness. Was it guilt that had eaten away at him, Laurence wondered, or life in the constant dread of being unmasked as a would-be regicide?

  Quivering at the sight of Laurence, he dismissed the equerry. “God’s blood,” he exploded, “what in hell are you doing here?”

  Laurence bowed politely to him. “You’ve changed quarters, my lord. I had to ask for your whereabouts at your other house, which brought back such memories to me, of the night I called there on you and Radcliff – the night of his death, and nearly of mine.”

  Pembroke leant back in his chair, and recovered a trace of his hauteur. “These are more modest apartments than any of my houses, but at least now I am in the heart of Whitehall.”

  “The Cockpit,” said Laurence. “I’m surprised it should retain its old name, when the sport is forbidden by Parliament.”

  Pembroke did not smile. “I have been faithful to my bargain with His Majesty, and have kept my nose clean of intrigue. What does he want of me next?”

  “It is I who want something of you.”

  Pembroke studied him incredulously. “Why were you not arrested by the militia? The City is crawling with them after His Majesty’s recent plot and the murder of that officer last night.”

  “Murder, my lord?”

  “A captain of the Trained Bands was found mortally wounded in the street near Westminster Abbey. With his final breath, he described his attacker as a tall, dark man who muttered words in Spanish to his accompl
ice in crime. Whoever they are, the militia are searching for them. And the description fits you rather well.”

  A trickle of sweat coursed down Laurence’s spine. “I hadn’t even heard about it. And nor had I anything to do with the King’s designs upon the City Corporation. That was all an error, in my view.”

  “An error? I should hand you over to Parliament.”

  “You could, but His Majesty still possesses those incriminating letters of yours. He’s been faithful to his side of the bargain, in hiding your treachery from the world. I am asking you to hide me for a bit.”

  Pembroke scowled. “Thank heaven I can trust my servants or your neck would be in a rope, and I would be ruined.”

  “My lord, I believe you were at a banquet on Thursday, at the Merchant Tailors’ Hall. Are you acquainted with Sir Montague Hallam of the Vintners’ Company, who also attended?”

  “He has supplied my cellar for these twenty years.”

  “I would like one of your servants to deliver a message to his wife.”

  “Would you, indeed. What does it concern?”

  “A private matter between the two of us.”

  “It’s said she is a woman of extraordinary allure,” Pembroke observed, with a seamy interest that amused Laurence.

  “She is. She and I were … close, before her marriage.”

  “So she was your mistress. Was it for her that you came to London?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I did tell you once that you had balls.” At last Pembroke smiled. “I was about to sup. Would you join me?”

  “Gladly, my lord,” Laurence said. “I’m famished.”

  The next day, Pembroke announced that he must go to his sitting in the Lords. “It is best for me to observe my normal routine, though most of the benches are vacant these days, and I shall have to listen to some interminable debate about the tax on coal. Write your message, and I’ll have it dispatched in the afternoon.”

  Laurence composed a note in crabbed handwriting to Lady Hallam from a Dr. Niger, saying that the powders she had brought with her to London were extremely bad for her general health, and whoever had prescribed them was ignorant of their longer term effects. She would be in danger of her life if she took them in a dose with any other substance, and on no account must she send for more. He added that she should not trust any other apothecaries in town, because most of them were charlatans. He begged for her word that she would do as he advised, and he would write again to prescribe an effective remedy for her complaint.

  Pembroke demanded to read the note. Laurence feigned embarrassment and prevaricated, but eventually surrendered it. “What manner of complaint has she, Mr. Beaumont?”

  “One that she contracted from me.”

  “I doubt Sir Montague will catch it off her,” Pembroke said, with a braying laugh. “He told me himself that he has not had a prick stand in years.”

  Over the course of two more days Laurence waited in agonized suspense for Isabella’s reply, as he imagined Price must have waited for that of Mr. Devenish. Then towards evening, a cask of wine arrived from Sir Montague. At the bottom of the cask was a corked vial, and inside it a slip of paper. “‘Iacta alea est,.’ ” Pembroke read aloud to Laurence. “The die is cast. What does she mean by that?”

  “She has taken the powders.”

  “ ‘And please desist from offering me your advice. Look to your own future health, instead.’ Dear me, sir, she will not forgive you for infecting her! I presume that you will soon be on your way, though before you go,” Pembroke said, in a solemn voice, “I want to propose a new bargain: a favour of you, in exchange for information I gleaned today at Westminster. I shall have to confirm it, but if it is true, it will be of vital import to His Majesty.”

  “Please, continue, my lord,” said Laurence, almost too heartsick to listen.

  “I want you to plead my case with the King. Tell him that I repent. I cannot ask him to destroy those letters, yet a measure of his forgiveness would be a huge relief to me. We were friends, he and I, and if he would think less ill of me, I would leave the world comforted.”

  Laurence felt moved, despite all he knew about Pembroke: there were tears in those grey vulture’s eyes. “And what have you for him, in return?”

  “Tidings of another conspiracy against him,” said Pembroke, “or, to be precise, against his nephew, Prince Rupert.”

  “By God,” breathed Laurence, after Pembroke had explained. “I only pray I can report to Oxford in time.”

  VI.

  Laurence sprinkled sand upon the wet ink, and showed Pembroke the safe conduct he had forged, with the Earl’s assistance. “How does it appear to you?”

  “Quite well done, though if it doesn’t convince the militia, I won’t lift a finger to save you. And should it come out that you were here, I’ll say you forced me at gunpoint to hide you.”

  “I’ll corroborate your story, my lord.”

  Pembroke regarded him mournfully as he stuffed the paper into his doublet. “I have to confess that I appreciated your company, sir. I am without friends or family. I lost my eldest son to fever before he could cement our fortunes through marriage, my daughter’s husband was slain at Newbury fighting for the King, and I am estranged from my wife, and from my finest treasures, which she keeps squirrelled away at my old family seat. I have nothing much to live for, and I foresee no benefit from this war. I fear that it will prove my undoing, that of my line, and that of England, too.” Pembroke cleared his throat. “Will you require a horse tonight?”

  “Yes, thank you. My lord, I am pleased that we’re no longer enemies.”

  “Then work your magic upon the King, as you have worked it upon me, and persuade him of my contrition.” Pembroke gave Laurence a sudden, sly look. “Do you ever ask yourself what might have happened, had my scheme succeeded?”

  “I do. In fact, I had a bad dream about it.”

  “One last thing,” said Pembroke. “If you think you had me fooled that you risked your neck to come here and warn your mistress off some quack medicine, you are mistaken. But I don’t want the truth. The less I know, the sounder I sleep.”

  “This safe conduct has not been properly authorised by Parliament,” barked the lone sentry at Tothill Fields. “I must search you, and afterwards you may ride to Derby House and apply to the Committee of Safety.”

  “You’ve no right to a search if you’re not about to let me pass,” Laurence said, as rudely.

  The man grabbed his horse’s bridle. “We’re on orders, sir. Dismount.”

  It was the dead of the night, and beyond the torches at the fortification gates, Laurence could see no more than a yard ahead through the relentless snow. Thanks to Pembroke’s expert taste in horseflesh, he was mounted on an animal bred for the chase. If he could burst forward and gather up speed, he could jump the gates, and he calculated that even a skilled marksman would have no clean shot at him once he was over. He slipped his knife from his doublet, swung one leg out of the stirrup and across the saddle as if to obey the sentry’s order, and with a silent apology to both Pembroke and the horse, jabbed the blade into its skin, below the withers. It screamed, and the sentry had to let go and dodge or be trampled as it charged off, with Laurence clinging on sideways.

  He managed to regain his seat and prepare for the jump, flattened against its neck. As it landed, he dared a glance behind him: nothing but a white wall of snow. He heard the crack of pistol fire, and a ball whizzed by, and another; more sentries on the walls above were shooting at him. He was nearly clear of their range. Then a flash blasted towards him from an odd, oblique angle, and he felt as though a scalding fist had smacked into the muscle at the back of his right shoulder. Numbness spread instantly along his arm and his hand went limp. He dug his knees in hard as the frightened beast careered on, panting and snorting. They vaulted hedges and crashed through bushes and orchards, and forded a shallow stream; but on the far bank, after a while, they plunged into open countryside.


  Laurence reined in. He took off his cloak to swab the beast’s wound, superficial compared to his own. Clumsily, with his knife, he cut a strip of fabric that he rolled up and packed beneath his doublet over the hole in his flesh. With a second strip of cloak, he made a sling for his right arm; the cold would stem the bleeding that had spread stickily down his sleeve. He knew he might have an hour or so before the shock wore off and his strength would ebb. He threw the remains of his cloak about his shoulders and spurred on the horse, hoping it could take him some distance before it tired.

  He tired first and slumped in the saddle, his face buried in the animal’s mane, gritting his teeth at every jog and bounce as its pace reduced to a trot, and then a walk. He seemed to see ghastly images: of Isabella in a dank prison cell, and of a man in a long coat towering over her; of Prince Rupert, defiant yet resigned, surrounded by enemy troops; and of Tom’s despairing face shattered by a hail of fire.

  When Laurence next squinted up, an orange trail glowed among the clouds to the east: dawn was breaking. The bleak, snowy fields around him provided no clue as to where he was, and though he felt utterly frozen, his shoulder and back throbbed acutely and blood had soaked through his makeshift sling. The desire to sleep overwhelmed him, and he dropped the reins. Then he heard Seward’s voice in his ear. “If you do not keep going, you will die.” Too stupefied to understand how this could be, he nudged the horse to a trot. “A little further, my boy, a little further,” Seward was saying. As the horse ambled on, Laurence’s lids drifted shut; and he saw no more images, only darkness.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I.

  Antonio had ambushed a second soldier in London, this time with out shedding a drop of blood: he had throttled the man with his belt. He and Diego had then stripped the corpse of hat, breastplate, clothes, boots, and other belongings, including sword and pistol, and divided up these English items for a disguise. Blessed again by God, they had passed unquestioned through the defences, each wearing half of the dead soldier’s orange sash. Yet the weather had now deteriorated beyond belief: massive dumps of snow, and cold bitterer than in the Low Countries. They could hardly go ten miles a day and the light waned unnaturally early. Overnight they burrowed into deserted barns or hedgerows, teeth chattering, their faces, fingers, and toes frozen, huddled together like sheep in a storm. Every soul that they encountered had treated them with overt hostility, and Antonio swore they had been misdirected whenever they asked for the Oxford road. By the eighth day of their journey, in view of Oxford’s walls, their horse caved beneath them and they had to plod the last few miles into town.