7

SUBTERFUGES

The Merry Monarch was anything but. ‘No, Sir Joseph.’ The king slapped the table. ‘I tell you, no. I cannot make myself plainer. I will not cower. I never have and I never will. By God, ’tis not the Stuart way.’

‘I only suggest it for a time, Majesty.’ The Under-Secretary of State took off his spectacles to pinch the deep red grooves at the bridge of his nose. ‘Just until these flames,’ he gestured to the papers spread on the table before him, ‘are snuffed out.’

‘Flames? These are sparks alone, man, nothing more. If I was to take to my bed each time some bedlamite threatened me in misspelled prose or execrable verse, marry, I’d never leave its confines.’ He sniffed. ‘Now while that might please my Lady Castlemaine or my sweet Winifred, it would not me, especially when my inaction would be construed as cowardice.’ Charles turned, fixing the thief-taker with his unnerving stare, the one eye bright, the other dulled with a cast. ‘Do you not agree with me, Mr Pitman?’

It did not seem the right time to remind His Majesty that he went by ‘Pitman’ alone, he thought. Nor was it in his own interests to agree with the king and contradict the minister – who, he reminded himself again, was his current paymaster. Neutrality seemed appropriate. ‘I believe Sir Joseph refers not to the broadsides but to other information he has there.’

‘Oh yes, the letters from his informers – paid rogues who puff up their roguery to be better rewarded.’ Charles dug in his pocket and pulled out an ornate ivory box. ‘How much silver would they receive if they sent word: “No threats. All is peaceful in the realm.” Hmm? Snuff,’ he added, flicking open the box lid, offering it first to Sir Joseph, who declined, then to Pitman, who accepted. Monarch and subject snorted in each nostril, then sneezed simultaneously into mouchoirs. Pitman was surprised to note that his was far cleaner than His Majesty’s. But that’s my Bettina for you, he thought.

‘It is true, sir,’ Sir Joseph continued when the echoes had faded, ‘that some agents might exaggerate. But rarely all, and at the same time.’ He riffled some of the papers before him. ‘These speak to a pattern of violence building. This is a special time, after all. This year –’

‘Yes, Williamson. Yes. I know. But I do not suppose either Pitman – ha, yes, sir, you see I remembered! – either my good Pitman here nor I need a sermon on 666 and the year of the Beast.’ Charles mimed a yawn. ‘Really, they have been spouting similar nonsense for years, with every comet foretelling the doom of kings, and Christ’s return in the flesh. And here I am…and Christ is not.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I mean no sacrilege in that remark. Only that I am certain in my belief that, with God’s good grace, I will see my saviour in heaven after my death and not here before it.’

‘It is the possibility of your death that concerns us, Majesty. If you would but –’

‘Truly!’ exclaimed Charles. ‘I do not understand why these fanatics mean me such harm. All know how I wanted toleration for every man’s belief on my restoration. It was not my fault that forces, especially in parliament, overruled me.’ He reached to scratch under his luxuriant, curled wig. ‘I will try again, when the time is right for it. I believe every man and woman should be allowed to peaceably – peaceably, mark you! – worship God in his own way. Why, my brother is a Catholic, as is our mother, and I would have him and her as free as any.’

The royal family’s Catholicism, as well as the suspicion that Charles himself harboured desires that way, was a reason so many feared and hated him. Pitman wondered how the minister would handle the subject, now it had been raised.

By ignoring it. ‘Sire,’ Sir Joseph’s voice was quiet, but firm. ‘These people do not want universal tolerance. They hate it as much as they hate restriction – nay, they hate it more. They do not care for freedom of worship. They want only one way of worship – theirs. They are fundamental in their beliefs and they will kill any who oppose them, especially –’

‘Try to kill. They have failed utterly, and will fail again. Men like you and our Pitman here have seen to that, and will each time.’ Charles stood, so both the others did too. ‘No, sir. I will not be hidden away in a box. Marry, I’d die of boredom and do their job for ’em.’ He pulled out a pocket watch. ‘I am late for…something. I will leave you to discuss how best to counter these threats.’

Both men bowed. ‘Majesty.’

Charles walked to the door and opened it. In the corridor, two of his guards immediately stood to attention. He paused, his hand on the door edge, and looked back. ‘Let me leave you with a story, gentlemen. ’Tis of my father.’ He swallowed. ‘The morning of his execution was bitter cold. So he asked his groom to lay out two thick wool shirts. He was not afraid, knowing as he did that heaven awaited him above. But he did not wish those who watched to mistake any shivering for fear.’ He nodded. ‘That’s how we do it in our family. So I will not cower.’ He smiled. ‘But I may, upon occasion, wear an extra shirt.’

He was gone, leaving the door ajar. Sir Joseph crossed to it, held it a moment, then closed it softly. Without turning, he spoke. ‘You see with what I must contend.’

Even with the king no longer in the room, Pitman still did not see why he must take sides. He was not there to ingratiate himself. He was there, in the end, for gold. ‘How may I be of service, Sir Joseph?’

The Cumbrian turned and peered over his spectacles, looking even more like a heron about to stoop for a fish. ‘I wish you to help protect His Majesty, Mr Pitman.’

‘Just Pitman, begging your favour. And both my partner Captain Coke and I have been offered such positions before. They are not –’

He paused. He was about to say ‘lucrative enough’ and go on to explain that with his family of five and one more on the way, with Coke becoming a father and buying a house, that they had to return to their primary business of taking highwaymen…when, fortunately, he was forestalled.

‘I do not mean as guards for his person. He has many as capable as you for that pass. No, I want you to exert your special skills – to sniff out these rogues and apprehend them far from His Majesty.’ Sir Joseph came back to his desk, sat behind it, ordered the jumble of pamphlets and papers before him and drew one out. ‘I have word of a gathering. It is of the group known as the Council of the Six, also sometimes called the Council of the Great Ones.’ He snorted. ‘How they puff themselves up, these builders and brewers and tanners. Have you heard of them?’

‘Yes. They are the leaders of the Fifth Monarchists.’

‘Five of them are. One of them is my agent. A somewhat reluctant one and so not always reliable but –’ He pulled out another paper. ‘This meeting will take place in three days’ time somewhere in the city. I do not know where yet and may not discover it as my informant writes but sporadically. So I am hoping you would exert your special skills, sniff out the place – and arrest them all.’

Were you indeed, thought Pitman, but said, ‘The report you have of this clandestine meeting. Does it not give a more accurate account as to numbers?’

Sir Joseph shifted a few papers on his desk, jabbing his finger at one. ‘The Council, so there’s six. There will no doubt be a few other conspirators. So six – five, if you take away my man – and a few.’ He peered over his spectacles again. ‘Shall we say ten?’ he added, taking out and glancing at his pocket watch.

We can say hens make holy water, thought Pitman, but it wouldn’t make it true. Instead, he replied, ‘I’ll only have my six constables from the parish –’

‘And the troop of His Majesty’s Life Guards which I will assign.’

‘That, sir, is a problem. You know that the City aldermen are prickly about soldiers within the walls, ever since the late king’s wars. And twenty cavalrymen would be hard to conceal. They may frighten off the very pigeons we seek to trap.’

The Under-Secretary put away his watch and took off his glasses. ‘Then what is it you suggest?’

‘Leave off the soldiers. Let me recruit discreetly among local parishes. I warrant I can raise a force that will suffice.’

‘In three days?’

‘Aye, the shorter amount of time the better. For you, sir, are not the only one with informants. But they’ll want paying.’ He nodded. ‘As will I.’

‘I wondered when money might arise.’ Sir Joseph sat back. ‘How much?’

It didn’t take excessive haggling. Figures were written down, scratched out, revised. In the end, Pitman got rather more than he’d first hoped for. There would be thirty guineas apiece for him and the captain and ten for each of the men he’d hire – if all the pigeons were caught.

The deal was concluded with a nod. Pitman didn’t think to offer his hand – the Under-Secretary did not look like someone who spat and shook. Dismissed, the thief-taker tucked the paper into his doublet, rose – then paused. For he’d remembered something else. Someone else.

‘Sir Joseph?’

‘Hmm?’

‘In our discussion with His Majesty of the events at the theatre, you did not mention the man you believed behind them.’

The Under-Secretary looked up. Lamplight reflected in his lenses. ‘I did not. I do not believe the king should be burdened with everything.’ He sniffed. ‘Besides, word has it that “Homo Sanguineus” is gone. Indeed, many say he was never here at all.’

‘I have a feeling that he was.’

‘A feeling?’

‘Call it a sixth sense.’

‘Really, sir! We deal in facts in this room.’

Pitman continued, unruffled. ‘And if he still is? If indeed he attends this meeting of the Six –?’

He left the sentence unfinished. It was the way to draw certain men out, he’d always found. And it drew Sir Joseph, who squinted up at him. ‘If he does, and you take him, you would find me most generous, Mr, er…no, just Pitman, isn’t it?’

‘It is indeed, sir,’ Pitman smiled and took out the paper again. ‘And I wonder if you’d just add to the bottom there how generous?’

—

‘Where are you taking me?’ Sarah said, stopping to lean against a door post. ‘Really, William, I do not need this exercise.’

Coke looked back. He wished she felt better. He wished the rain had not begun so suddenly and continued so hard. He wished he’d conceived a different plan than the one he was executing now. But he hadn’t, and time was now against them. Though he’d vowed to give up all gambling, and had succeeded in forsaking cocks and dice, he was still throwing for the hazard here, the stake higher than it had ever been.

He moved back to her, unclasped his cloak at the neck, reaching half of it around and over her. ‘There’s something I must show you, love. Come, it is but a little further.’

He knew that after a performance, if she was not rehearsing for the next day, all she wanted was to go back to their lodgings in Sheere Lane and sleep. His urgency moved her, though. She sighed, but set off.

Coke glanced back. Trailing them by twenty yards, as wet as a dog on a chase, was Dickon. Yet no weather concerned the boy as long as he was near his captain. Especially now, as he had shared what he planned to do with the lad, who loved Sarah near as much as he. Dickon stuck both thumbs up and grinned. Even in the rain, something sparkled on one digit’s end.

They turned, stepping out of the slight shelter of Cursitor’s Alley, and onto the more open Fetter Lane. The rain grew heavier, thudding into his cloak in damp explosions. He felt her pace falter again. ‘Close, love,’ he whispered. ‘Very close.’

They turned into West Harding Street. There, to the distance of some hundred yards, the old houses had been cleared away on both sides and new ones begun. Scaffolding was everywhere, several derricks swung around. Coke led the way to the tallest structure – a brick chimney, smoke curling up from it, black against the grey sky.

They halted beside it, and before a site that looked as if it had been recently forsaken. Trowels and hammers lay about, alongside a mound of mortar with a shovel shoved in it. Bricks rose to the height of a tall man, a first level attained. To the side, Coke saw a great beam of oak resting on trestles: the house’s hearth joist, ready to be raised.

Here was the moment he’d anticipated. Dreaded.

‘What are we looking at, William?’ Sarah had leaned away from him when they halted. Her eyes were not filled with tiredness now but alertness. Her voice was stage sharp.

He assumed that she would probably have already guessed. But he said it as a surprise anyway. ‘Our house.’

Her gasp was gratifying. ‘What? How?’

While she had rehearsed her plays in their two rooms, he had practised a speech. But he was not trained as she was, and all he wanted to say came out now a-jumble. ‘The joist is there, about to be raised. The second payment is due. The house may be finished in a month. There’s a privy office upstairs. We can move in shortly thereafter. Not into the privy. We –’ He swallowed. Damn me, he thought, give me a pistol at a roadside and a lord to rob any day. Then he remembered – there was a movement he’d practised to precede the next words.

He dropped suddenly, to kneel in the mud at her feet. ‘Will you marry me?’ he said.

—

They weren’t a shock, his words. The house was – and the sudden surge of delight it brought was immediately washed away by fear. Who was she, Sarah Chalker, born in the lowest parish in London, St Giles in the Fields, a tenement urchin who’d struggled from the filth to stride the playhouse stage, to own a house? A new one too, brick-built, with – with a privy upstairs, is that what he’d said?

She began to laugh, raising a hand to stifle it. His face! Looking up at her, a hank of his thick, black-silver hair plastered to his forehead, raindrops running through his moustache. The appeal in those grey eyes, the ones whose deep pain she’d noted from their very first meeting, the ones she had not allowed herself to love until later because she’d been married then, though her husband was killed, cruelly killed, shortly thereafter. And even though she knew she loved Captain Coke, loved him in a way she had not loved John Chalker, she had not thought to marry again. The life within her had not changed her in that opinion. It was neither the playhouse nor the St Giles way.

And yet? Here he was, the best man she’d ever known, kneeling before her because that’s what he’d seen her stage lovers do. More, doing it before the house he’d bought to shelter her, shelter the life inside her that they had made. What could she say, as she had so often said upon the stage, but – ‘Yes.’

‘Huzzah!’ he cried, but then did not move when she expected him to stand and sweep her into a kiss. Another movement made her start – and remember that he had planned all this, and was not done with his scheme yet. For Dickon was suddenly there, wide-set eyes afire, mouth spread in a grin. He held a thumb up as if to cheer them, and she saw something glittering upon it. Coke reached for it now and, lifting her left hand, placed the ring upon her third finger.

‘Dickon is our ring-bearer now. As he will be on Sunday.’

‘Sund—’ she began, incredulous, but then he was indeed up, catching her in his arms, stopping her words with a kiss. Beside them, Dickon cried joyfully and began to caper about. Within it all, she was aware of many things: the rain, ceasing as suddenly as it had come; the sun coming out, dazzling them, like a shift of mirrors behind the wings of the theatre. It made her laugh again, joyously, within his kiss, so she broke away and laughed too.

There were so many surprises to discuss, she began with the most recent. ‘But how can we be married this Sunday? The banns must need be read the two Sundays preceding.’

‘They have been.’ Coke’s expression changed, a young boy caught out in some mischief. ‘I knew your reluctance, ma’am. I thought to circumvent it with haste. Not to give you a chance to change your mind.’ He looked sheepish. ‘Was I wrong?’

‘You were certainly assured, sirrah!’ she said, with a touch of asperity. ‘A woman likes to make certain preparations for such an event and you have given me little time.’

‘I believe Mrs Pitman has taken care of many things you may require,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh, so all the world knows of your plans aside from me?’

‘Not all. Dickon, the Pitmans –’

‘Truly?’ Something about the day came to her. ‘Wait! This Sunday? Are you not about an enterprise with Pitman on Saturday?’

‘I am.’

It was not the sun vanishing again into a cloud, withdrawing its heat, that made her shiver. It was the ghost of a memory – and the memory of a ghost. She no longer saw him there as he was, cloaked and booted, but as he had been upon the stage two weeks previously – barefoot and in rags.

As she swayed, he reached for her, and she gripped his arm hard. ‘Postpone it, sir. It…it seems an ill venture to me.’

He frowned. ‘How so? You know nothing of it.’

‘It is…just a feeling. I –’

‘I cannot. I am pledged.’

‘Withdraw. Please, sir!’ She dug her fingers in. ‘I fear you may make me a widow ere you make me a wife.’

His eyes narrowed and he reached his free hand up to run thumb and finger either side of his moustache. After a moment, he shook his head. ‘Madam, much as I respect your…feelings, I cannot. Pitman and I…this is what we do, after all. And both of us need the rewards it will bring. For with his Bettina pregnant too, as you know, he will soon have five mouths to feed. While I –’ He looked first down at her, then about. ‘I am committed here, to provide shelter to our joy.’

‘But –’

‘Nay, Sarah,’ he said sharply. ‘I cannot be argued out of it.’

For a moment she saw a hardness come into his eyes. This was a man, she knew, who had not only fought throughout the late king’s wars and endured long years of hard exile after them, he had also earned his living as a highwayman. And though what she mainly saw in their daily contact was her gentle William, she knew he was something else as well – and that this look could not be gainsaid. So she took a breath. ‘Very well, sir. If you promise me –’

‘Sure, it’s none so dangerous. Some rogues is all. Pitman always says that, in the event, they come as quiet as lambs.’ He smiled, the hardness displaced again. ‘With our customary good fortune, their fleeces will provide the other payments on this house.’

She could not smile. Was there a softer way she could yet win this argument? But she was forestalled in trying by another voice.

‘Mr Coke! Come to chivvy us for our slow progress?’

Sarah turned to see a heavy-set man in a much-stained apron.

Coke stepped away from her and spoke. ‘Ah, sir! Not at all, I think what you have achieved so far is remarkable. May I present, ah –’

‘Mrs Coke, certain.’ The man swept off his cap and bowed. ‘Samuel Tremlett.’

‘Not certain. Though now I suppose I have little choice.’ Sarah smiled at the man’s querying frown and nodded in greeting.

‘May I show you, ma’am, sir, what we have achieved so far? It is quite different from seeing it on paper, I assure you.’ He squinted up into a sunbeam. Behind him, steam rose from wet piles of brick and mud. ‘The Lord smiles on us now, sure, and we can be speedy again. I warrant we’ll raise the joist on Saturday.’

‘And may I bring you the payment on Monday, sir? I am somewhat –’ Coke glanced at Sarah, ‘engaged this weekend.’

‘Monday will be fine, sir. Please!’ He led them through the open doorway. For the next quarter hour, as they moved from one marked-off or half-finished room to the next and Tremlett described the modernity that would soon stand where they did, Sarah leaned on Coke. His solidity gradually dispersed the shade of him she’d recalled. Finally, and for the first time in an age, standing in a house she would soon live in, give birth in, she felt entirely well. More than that, she thought, for the first time since John Chalker was buried, I feel entirely content.