Theophilus Grey and the Traitor's Mask

by Catherine Jinks

  But would it be fixed?

  He waited as people shuffled around nearby. He waited a little longer as hinges creaked and a door banged. Then he caught his breath when he heard the tell-tale jingle-jangle of someone wielding a bunch of keys. No one had mentioned a lock! No one had said anything about being locked in!

  The keys jingled again, more faintly this time. Then silence fell. The only sound that Philo could hear was the thudding of his own heart. Cautiously drawing the cork from its bunghole, he saw that he’d been lucky; he wasn’t staring at a wall or a slab of wood. Instead he had a pretty good view of the large, dark, vaulted room in which he’d been left. Though the light was very bad, enough of it was leaking through a barred window to show him that the room itself was unoccupied. Though he waited and waited, no one crossed his line of sight. No footsteps or voices reached his ears.

  He was alone in a cellar, trapped by half a tun of wine.

  Not that he was really trapped. He felt sure that if he began to rock back and forth, the cask above him would fall to the ground. But the noise was bound to bring people running. And if it did, Philo might not escape from his hiding place in time.

  Philo calculated his chances. The room was very dark. The door was quite a distance away. If someone came in, and headed straight for the fallen cask, and had nobody else in tow … well, then Philo might be able to slip out from behind the door and escape unseen. Providing other people weren’t waiting outside.

  Even if they do believe I’m a choirboy, they’ll still think I’ve been stealing wine, Philo thought grimly. The fug in his brain had magically cleared; fear had sharpened his thinking. He remembered what Mr Giberne had told him – that if he was caught, he had only to mention Mr Giberne’s name. But Mr Giberne had also said that Philo’s cask would be left on top of the stack. And he’d said nothing about a locked door.

  Philo began to think hard, as a dark sense of dread grew inside him. Did Mr Giberne really want him to escape? He hadn’t given Philo his real name, or told him about the locked door. What if the name ‘Bishop’ meant nothing to anyone? What if Mr Giberne was hoping that Philo would be caught?

  What if he was punishing Philo for trying to leave his service?

  It was a chilling thought – and hard to believe. Surely no one could be so vicious? Surely this was nothing but a series of errors? And why, if Mr Giberne’s intentions weren’t honourable, had he exposed his own family by packing Philo into a ‘Giberne and Stainforth’ wine-cask? Surely that was proof of his goodwill? Philo was busy telling himself this when he suddenly remembered: his own cask wasn’t labelled. Even worse, Mr Giberne wasn’t aware that Philo knew his real name.

  By now the force of Philo’s heartbeat was making his whole body jerk. He told himself fiercely to calm down and think. He had a map. But was it reliable? If Mr Giberne wanted him caught, it might be misleading. And as for the letter …

  The letter. Philo groped around for the letter, which had to be opened. He knew that he would never fully understand what was going on unless he had some sense of what the letter contained. So he broke its seal and pushed it towards the bunghole, hoping to decipher at least a few words.

  He was a slow reader at the best of times. Squashed into a wine-cask, with his chin on his knees and hardly any light, he had to struggle hard. It took him ages to spell out the name ‘Thomas Sparrow’, which was scrawled on the blank side of the folded paper. Luckily, the scribbled message on the other side concluded with the initials ‘A. M.’, which weren’t hard to work out. They undoubtedly stood for ‘Alexander Murray’ – just as Mr Giberne had promised.

  But when Philo started picking apart the first sentence of the letter, he soon realised that he had been misinformed. The German cannot live, it said. Then: My brother would disagree, so we must confer in secret. By the time he had reached Mr Biddle must be defended from all Claimants when he is restored to his Proper Place, Philo knew that he wasn’t looking at a request to meet. He was looking at a plot against the throne. ‘The German’ was almost certainly King George – and ‘Mr Biddle’ was probably Charles Edward Stuart.

  Philo might as well have been carrying a death warrant.

  So Mr Giberne had lied. And if he’d lied about this, he could have lied about everything. With a cold, clear sense of despair, Philo considered the possibility that Mr Giberne was trying to have Alexander Murray arrested for high treason. It made sense. A common linkboy, disguised as a Chapel Royal chorister, found hiding in the King’s cellars with a treacherous letter sent by a well-known Jacobite to a member of the King’s guard … it was the perfect scheme. And no one was likely to believe the linkboy’s story. Why should they, if the name ‘Bishop’ meant nothing to anyone?

  Philo closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He knew that if he let himself be distracted by this act of betrayal, it would destroy him. Instead he had to concentrate on getting out. One way was to run – to overturn the barrel sitting on top of him and run straight past whoever came to check on the noise. The other way …

  The other way was Mrs Cowley’s way. And it would work only if Philo really was wearing the uniform of a Chapel Royal chorister. There was every chance that Mr Giberne had lied about that, too – though after careful consideration, Philo decided that he probably hadn’t. The more successful the plot appeared to be, the more dangerous Mr Murray would look.

  So Philo made his choice. Having weighed his chances and come to a decision, he tucked his fears away and concentrated on Mrs Cowley’s teachings. If you inhabit your role, you will find that you are more convincing, she had told him.

  All he could do was follow her lead – and pray that he had enough skill for the job.

  It didn’t take him long to find the tears that he needed; they were already close to the surface. Letting them flow, he began to cry out for help in a small, piping voice, which became more and more shrill when no one answered. Finally he heard a key turn in a lock, and his heart seemed to contract like a snail into its shell. But he kept bleating away as the door swung open to reveal the silhouette of a tall, doughy-looking man with a paunch, who was dressed in a green coat, a grey wig, and silver-buckled shoes.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ Philo wailed. ‘Please, sir – please let me out!’

  ‘Gracious heaven!’ the man exclaimed. He advanced a few steps, frowning. He had a smooth, plump face and very dark eyebrows. ‘Hello? Who is it?’

  ‘I’m in here! Please, sir, I’m so sorry – I am, indeed I am …’

  ‘Blood an’ ’ounds!’ The man reached Philo’s barrel, then dropped to his haunches. ‘What on earth …?’

  ‘I can’t breathe, sir – please, sir – oh, please let me out!’ Philo began to sob, and the sobs were genuine. He really did feel desperate. ‘They said they’d leave me in the kitchen … ’twas all in fun … they played me for a fool …’

  Luckily, the man didn’t dawdle. He soon freed Philo by lifting the cask on top of Philo’s and dumping it onto the floor nearby. Philo then shot to his feet, so abruptly that his companion gave a yelp of shock.

  ‘The deuce! You’re a chapel child!’

  ‘I’m a new boy,’ Philo snivelled as he climbed out of his cask. ‘They said ’twas my duty to play a prank – every new boy must – they said I was to jump from the cask and scare the cook in the kitchen, but they put me in here …’ Philo dissolved into sobs again, abandoning his hard-won dignity. Crying was abhorrent to him; he prided himself on his composure, and was still smarting from his outburst at Mr Paxton’s bedside. Yet he tried to ignore his crippling sense of embarrassment by concentrating on Mrs Cowley’s lesson: inhabit your role. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he blubbered. ‘I only – I only did as I was b-bidden.’

  ‘Lord,’ said the man in the grey wig. He looked flummoxed. ‘Does your master know about this?’

  ‘Mr Gates? I don’t think so.’

  At the mention of Mr Gates, the man’s whole face relaxed. ‘Go and tell Mr Gates what has befallen you,’ he said, ‘and belike t
hose other fellows will regret what they did. Go on! Off you go! You don’t belong here …’

  He hadn’t finished speaking before Philo was out of the room. Walking briskly (but taking care not to run), Philo paused for a second when he reached the door, which opened onto a long, dingy passage. Then he spotted a bright square of light at one end of this passage, and headed straight for it. The blood was thrumming in his ears.

  He emerged into a very large courtyard, which was surrounded by squat stone arches set into a jumble of redbrick walls. A forest of chimneys loomed overhead. There were windows everywhere. At each door stood a Yeoman of the Guard dressed in a white ruff, a black cap, and a scarlet coat embroidered with a crowned rose.

  Philo didn’t glance back to see if there was a guard posted at the door he’d just used. Instead he made for the other side of the courtyard, remembering what Mr Giberne had said about the cellars, and the southern wing, and the gardens. If Mr Giberne could be trusted – if the gardens really were behind Philo – then the road to the palace had to be in front.

  But he’d hardly taken six steps before he had to swerve off course. Two choirboys had suddenly appeared, framed in the archway opposite. They were dressed in scarlet coats trimmed with gold, just like Philo, and they were walking along with their heads together.

  Philo knew that they would soon look up and see him. So he did the only thing he could; he took a sharp right and plunged straight through the nearest door. Luckily, the guard at the door didn’t even glance his way. No one tried to prevent Philo from running up a flight of stone stairs, which ended at a panelled corridor hung with dark and dusty paintings. Philo tried to head north again by turning left down this corridor – only to find that another turn soon forced him back in an easterly direction, then again to the south. The place was a warren, full of low, coffered ceilings, dingy tapestries and mismatched windows. There were random steps going up and down. There were blocked-off rooms, blocked-up fireplaces, and hatches built into the wainscoting.

  There were people, too. Philo couldn’t avoid them. He passed footmen in white wigs, gentlemen in gold-frogged uniforms, maids in muslin caps, ink-stained clerks, a tailor with pins in his cuff, and a lady with a dog under her arm. None of these people seemed to notice Philo, though the pageboys did. He spotted two of them, each a little younger than he was. Both were dressed like miniature footmen, and both glanced at him sideways as they passed. One even slowed, looking back over his shoulder with a perplexed frown.

  That frown made Philo nervous. So he ducked into a curious little stairwell, as narrow as a chimney, that ended two floors up. At its top was an arched door not much bigger than Philo. When he opened it, he found himself in a beautiful room lined with yellow silk. At the centre of this room stood a table, around which three people were seated, playing cards.

  Two of the players were middle-aged women with dark hair. The third was an elderly man in a red silk cap and slippers. He wore a rich purple dressing-gown over a waistcoat flecked with food-stains. His face was flat and jowly, his heavy-lidded eyes set in prominent pouches.

  He blinked when he saw Philo. Then he spluttered something in a foreign tongue, addressing one of the footmen ranged around the room. But they were already converging on Philo – who immediately turned tail and charged back downstairs.

  On the bottom step he almost collided with a gentleman carrying a white staff. But Philo dodged him.

  ‘You, there!’ the gentleman exclaimed. Philo didn’t answer. Taking a sharp left, he threw himself down the first set of stairs he came to, as galloping footsteps multiplied behind him. From that point on, everything seemed to blur before his eyes. Though here and there something would jump out at him in stark relief – a gold tassel, perhaps, or a startled face – most of what he saw, as he pounded along, merged into a kind of visual smear. All he could do was chase the daylight, hoping to reach a courtyard before the footmen reached him.

  And then, all at once, he did. Suddenly he burst into a sunny space full of wagons and horses and porters and grooms. Crates of cabbages were stacked in one corner. A guard was directing traffic. Scanning the scene, Philo spotted a shiny black coach trundling past. It had a coat of arms painted on its door, and a liveried coachman handling the whip. But there were no footmen riding at the rear of the coach, and no running footmen stationed beside it.

  The coachman’s livery was scarlet and gold. As soon as Philo saw this, he knew what he had to do. Charging across the cobbled yard, he flung himself at the back of the coach and jumped up onto its footboard – which he rode all the way out of the palace, through gateway after gateway, past guard after guard, without once being challenged. No one tried to pull him off. No one hailed the coachman. Even the people in pursuit seemed to miss him – perhaps because he was soon screened from their gaze by a group of mounted gentlemen in scarlet uniforms. There was so much scarlet about that Philo was able to blend in.

  Despite his hatless, wigless state, he was wearing just enough in the way of red and gold to make a convincing footboy.

  It was only when he hit Pall Mall that Philo felt safe enough to raise his head. The first thing he saw was a cow-herder with three distressed cows. The second was a clergyman paying a street-hawker. And the sight of money being exchanged made Philo stiffen. A sudden memory had flashed into his head.

  Coins! Of course! That was where he had seen those pouchy eyes before!

  He realised, with a slight feeling of nausea, that the old man in the red silk cap had been the King of England.

  HOW PHILO

  REVENGED HIMSELF

  ON MR GIBERNE

  Philo’s luck held. He found himself being carried along St Martin’s Lane and into Long Acre, where he abandoned his ride near James Street.

  But the instant he jumped off, his gold-trimmed coat began to attract attention.

  Some of the people staring at him were probably wondering what a child of the Chapel Royal was doing so far from the palace. Others were almost certainly thinking: why is Philo Grey wearing a scarlet coat and breeches? So he removed the garish coat and tucked it under his arm, wishing that he felt cooler in his shirtsleeves. He couldn’t believe how hot the day had suddenly become. The heat was making him feel faint.

  But he stubbornly headed for Windsor Court, where he was hoping to find Mrs Cowley. When she didn’t answer his knock, he sat on the stairs outside her door, thankful for a chance to rest. He’d been formulating a plan – a plan against Mr Giberne. Philo doubted very much that Mr Giberne would be waiting for him back at the Golden Cross. Why risk exposure, if Philo was meant to be caught? No; it was more likely that Mr Giberne had already gone home.

  Philo didn’t know exactly where that home might be. But he did know where the offices of Stainforth and Giberne could be found, since the address had been painted on the company’s wine-cart. Inquiries would have to be made at Old South Sea House, in Old Broad Street. And Mrs Cowley would be the ideal person for the job – if she ever returned from her last job.

  Philo wondered why she hadn’t come back from the wharves yet. Or had she already come and gone? She certainly seemed to be taking her time, but Philo was too exhausted to worry. After a few minutes, he propped his head against the bannisters and drifted off to sleep. He dreamed that he was playing cards with the King of England, then woke with a start when someone touched his shoulder.

  It was Mrs Cowley, still dressed in Philo’s coat and hat. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘And where did you get those breeches?’

  Philo scrambled to his feet, so abruptly that his head began to spin. ‘You’re back,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Are you well, my dear? You seem …’ She paused for a moment. ‘Your colour is very high,’ she concluded.

  ‘I’m well enough,’ said Philo. ‘What happened?’

  But Mrs Cowley wouldn’t answer his question until she had let herself into her lodgings, where she immediately shrugged off his coat and pulled his hat off her head. Then she wrapped h
erself in a dressing-gown. ‘I fear I’ve had no luck down by the river,’ she confessed. ‘If folk there know what befell your friend, they’re keeping quiet about it.’ Suddenly her eyes widened as Philo dumped his chorister’s coat on the nearest chair. ‘Blood an’ ’ounds!’ she squawked. ‘Is that cloth-of-gold?’

  ‘Courtesy of Mr Giberne.’ Philo threw himself onto the couch and rubbed his tired eyes. ‘He betrayed me.’ Before Mrs Cowley could do more than blink, he added, ‘Where are your clothes? Did you not visit my house before coming here?’

  Mrs Cowley smiled. ‘In this?’ she drawled, her gaze dropping to her own mud-spattered petticoat. ‘I think not. How would your friends regard me if I had? Not as a respectable woman, I feel sure.’ She hesitated for a moment, then murmured, ‘In what way did our mutual friend betray you?’

  Philo fished around for Mr Giberne’s unsealed letter, which had grown crumpled and sweat-stained. When Mrs Cowley took it from him, he said, ‘Would you read it for me? I’ve not had time to finish it …’

  Unfolding the piece of paper, Mrs Cowley did as she was asked. ‘Dear friend,’ she began. ‘The German cannot live. My brother would disagree, so we must confer in secret. Mr Biddle must be defended from all Claimants when he is restored to his Proper Place. Poison would be the best solution.’ Mrs Cowley sucked in her breath and knitted her brows, then began to read more rapidly. ‘When the signal comes, and our Friends heed the call, it will be your duty to convey the German Family to a waiting boat. That is when the Tragic Accident will most believably occur—’ Mrs Cowley broke off, glancing up at Philo with a horrified look on her face. ‘But this is treason, surely? The German – is that not another name for His Majesty?’

  Philo nodded.

  ‘Who wrote this?’ Mrs Cowley peered at the letter again. ‘Who is A. M.?’

  ‘Alexander Murray, but he didn’t write it. Mr Giberne wrote it, pretending to be Mr Murray. Then he gave it to me, and put me in a wine-cask, and had me delivered to St James’s Palace.’ Philo went on to describe exactly what had happened, concluding with the words, ‘Mr Giberne must have wanted me caught, so that Mr Murray could be tried for treason.’