The Cheapside Corpse (22 page)

‘Well, tell him to hurry up,’ ordered the Earl irritably. ‘I want the matter concluded as soon as possible. Is there anything else? If not, will you send Neve to see me? I want to discuss buying another Lely.’

‘Would you like one of Hannah?’ asked Chaloner hopefully.

The Earl regarded him lugubriously. ‘I only collect portraits of princes or bishops, thank you. I do not think Lely shines as well when he paints ladies.’

Chaloner hoped no one else thought the same, or they would never sell the thing. ‘Incidentally, I know Neve was the “mutual acquaintance” who put you in touch with DuPont.’

The Earl gaped at him. ‘How did you find that out? Lord! I hope he does not think that
I
told you.’

‘It would have saved time if you had.’ Chaloner tried not to sound recriminatory, but did not succeed. ‘And danger – I could have learned far sooner that DuPont had died of the plague.’

‘He swore me to secrecy. And he is the best upholder in London, so I had no choice but to accede to his request. I cannot afford to lose him.’

Feeling the need for Thurloe’s wise counsel, Chaloner began to walk to Lincoln’s Inn. He stopped at the Rainbow en route to down a dish of Farr’s best, but declined to be drawn into a heated debate about bankers, as he was already bored with the subject.

‘A great sea-battle was fought against the Dutch yesterday,’ said Farr, trying to interest him in something else. ‘The guns were heard rumbling all day.
Royal Katherine
was involved and Captain Teddeman’s legs were shot off. Damn those butter-eaters! They aim to invade us and steal all our money.’

‘You sound like Backwell,’ said Speed, deftly turning the subject back to economics. Chaloner blew on his coffee, to cool it so he could drink up and leave. ‘
He
worships lucre, too.’

‘He does,’ nodded Stedman. ‘And he hates the fact that he and his fellows are being forced to fund the war, even though it is his patriotic duty.’

‘He is a greedy villain,’ declared Farr. ‘Like all bankers – rapacious parasites, who suck the wealth from others to make themselves rich.’

‘There was a fierce quarrel in my shop yesterday,’ reported Speed gleefully. ‘Over
The
Court & Kitchin
. I love it when a book makes an impact, as it is good for sales. Copies are flying off my shelves. Have you read it yet, Chaloner?’

‘Inflaming trouble between Royalists and Roundheads is nothing to be proud of,’ said Farr sternly, before Chaloner could admit that he had not. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

Chaloner left when Speed began to defend himself in a hectoring voice that was sure to annoy the others. He had hoped the coffee would perk him up, but it only made his heart pound and his head ache more than ever. He trudged lethargically along Fleet Street, the morsel of cabbage omelette that he had forced himself to swallow lying so heavily in his stomach that he was glad he had not eaten more. He coughed when he turned into Chancery Lane, as several bonfires had been lit, all loaded with damp twigs to make them smoke.

‘Spymaster Williamson’s orders,’ a soldier explained when Chaloner asked what was going on. The lower half of his face was covered with a scarf, and a dried toad hung around his neck. ‘The fumes combat dangerous miasmas, see, and a woman was took ill here yesterday. It was probably a fainting sickness, but he says we cannot be too careful.’

‘He is right.’ Chaloner wondered why the Spymaster should have been discussing such a matter with minions.

‘He is in charge of implementing the city’s anti-plague measures now,’ the soldier went on. ‘He hires watchers and searchers, sees the streets are washed, arranges for fires to be lit, and ensures the victims are locked up before they infect the rest of us. Listen! Did you hear that?’

‘What? The donkey braying? Or the pie-seller swearing?’

‘The bell! It is the second time it has tolled today. It means someone has died.’

‘People die every day,’ Chaloner pointed out. ‘And bells toll. It does not mean the plague—’

He stopped to sneeze, and the soldier backed away in horror. Then a bell began to chime in a different part of the city, and Chaloner listened uneasily. Would
he
start to notice them now, even though it was inevitable that people would pass away on a daily basis in a city of three hundred thousand inhabitants? He had never paid them much heed before, blending as they did into the usual hubbub of London’s streets.

Chaloner arrived at Chamber XIII to find preparations for the ex-Spymaster’s departure well under way. Clothes sat in neatly folded piles, and a travelling trunk was already half filled with books, papers and gifts for the children.

‘My colleagues here at Lincoln’s Inn think I am leaving because I fear a Dutch invasion,’ said Thurloe, tearing up the government’s latest newsbook and using the shreds to pack a glass vase. ‘But the rumour that they are in Scotland is a canard. Moreover, there was no sea-battle yesterday.
Royal Katherine
has not yet left port, and Captain Teddeman is still in possession of both his legs. The “gunfire” people claim to have heard was thunder. After all, the weather is unusually mild.’

Chaloner sat down and helped himself to Thurloe’s breakfast, which was a good deal more palatable than his own, although there was very little of it – the ex-Spymaster was abstemious.

‘On the other hand,’ Thurloe went on, ‘the plague terrifies me. Unfortunately, it does not terrify others, and there was trouble on Cheapside yesterday over the measures taken to contain it – they are considered too harsh. Fools! Do they
want
it to kill them?’

‘My wife’s maid brought it to our house in Amsterdam,’ confided Chaloner. He did not normally discuss that terrible time, and supposed his cold was lowering his defences. ‘Aletta and my baby caught it because they were locked in with her, as did three more servants, two neighbours and a friend. I am sure some would have lived had they been allowed out.’

‘Perhaps.’ Thurloe’s voice was kind. ‘Or they may have spread the infection to others.’

Chaloner changed the subject, unwilling to dwell on it. ‘I still have not found Randal, but I will try again today. I know which tavern he frequents.’

‘Good,’ said Thurloe. ‘Now tell me about Hannah’s obligations to Taylor. I sense that is the matter giving you the most cause for concern.’

Thurloe had read him correctly, because Chaloner was indeed anxious about the way the debt was spiralling out of control. ‘He wants more than we can give him, and the Earl has stopped my pay until I can arrange for two pairs of curtains to be delivered.’

Thurloe rolled his eyes. ‘Your master has some very strange priorities.’

‘Hannah is not the only one in trouble. Others include Bab May, Will Chiffinch, Peter Newton who killed himself over it, Sir George Carteret who was stripped of his jewelled buttons, Lord Rochester, Prince Rupert, Lady Carnegie and the Bishop of Winchester.’

‘The government should pass a law forbidding usurious rates of interest,’ said Thurloe sourly. ‘Cromwell would never have permitted such greedy opportunism.’

‘They dare not upset the bankers, as they need them to finance the war.’

‘I sense disaster in the air, Tom. No streets will run with blood, nothing will explode, sink, burn or collapse, but people will be ruined and the usual scapegoats will take the blame – Catholics, Quakers, foreigners. And supporters of the old regime.’

Chaloner stared at him. ‘Do you think
you
might be accused?’

‘It is possible. Perhaps you should consider leaving, too, because I sense that London will be a very bad place to live before much more time has passed.’

At Thurloe’s insistence, Chaloner went to the Green Dragon to look for Randal immediately upon leaving Lincoln’s Inn. Without Silas to attract free ale, he was obliged to pay for a drink, as no landlord appreciated customers who occupied seats without buying. What he was served was sour and weak, but he took a tentative mouthful anyway, wondering how long he could make it last before he was obliged to order a refill.

While he waited for Randal to appear, he listened to the buzz of conversation around him. He learned that the tale about the fifteen hundred drowned Britons was exposed as a lie, fabricated by a Swede for the attention it would bring. But that was old news, and the latest was that the Dutch fleet had been sighted off Yarmouth – invasion was imminent. Any sane Londoner should know that the Dutch would never risk attacking the capital, but several jittery merchants raced off to withdraw their money from the banks anyway, leading Chaloner to wonder whether the Earl might be right to fear a run.

There was also talk about
The Court & Kitchin
, and an ill-natured row it had sparked on Friday Street not an hour ago. Supposing he had better read the thing to see what all the fuss was about, Chaloner took it from his pocket.

It comprised three parts: the recipes, which seemed perfectly wholesome to him; a Preface to the Reader; and an Introduction that comprised a wordy and tedious rant spangled with quotes in Latin and references to classical mythology. Most was arrant nonsense, and he was surprised a printer had agreed to produce it – personally, he would have been embarrassed to have his business associated with such a peculiar and incomprehensible piece.

That thought gave him an idea, and he turned to the title page, where he read that it had been published by Thos Milbourn in St Martin le Grand. He frowned. Thomas Milbourn had printed Baron’s advertisements, too. He pulled Baron’s card from his pocket and compared it to the book, where idiosyncrasies in the typesetting showed they were from the same press. He could almost see St Martin le Grand from where he sat, so he abandoned the remains of his ale and went there at once, thinking that Milbourn might know where Randal was living.

Unfortunately, he arrived to find that the premises had been gutted by fire. The inferno had been recent, because none of the wreckage had been cleared away, although the charred wood was cold. A man from the house opposite saw him looking, and came to talk.

‘No one knows what happened,’ he said. ‘We just woke a few nights ago to see the place in flames. Poor Milbourn has not been seen since, so he must have been inside. Of course, I know who was responsible – Roundheads.’

‘Why them?’ asked Chaloner, a little defensively.

‘Because of that pamphlet about Mrs Cromwell. They would rather lynch the author, of course, but he is in hiding, so they picked on the printer instead.’

Chaloner walked back to the Green Dragon in an anxious frame of mind.
The Court & Kitchin
had been published weeks ago, yet feelings still ran high, so what would happen if Randal did produce a sequel? Clearly, Thurloe was right to be concerned.

When he reached the tavern, the dregs of his ale were where he had left them, so he sipped them while he perused the rest of Randal’s tirade. It was petty and spiteful, claiming that Cromwell would have been a glutton were it not for his wife’s
sordid frugality and thrifty baseness
, and that she was
a hundred times fitter for a barn than a palace
. She was accused of accepting bribes and the spoils of war, yet baulked at the cost of a personal carriage, so used ones confiscated from Royalists. Randal also scoffed that she sat by while custard was lobbed by guests at her daughter’s wedding, and that she kept three cows in St James’s Park so she would not have to pay for butter.

Its sly poison made Chaloner determined to talk to its author, but although he waited in the Green Dragon all day, Randal did not appear. Exasperated, he abandoned his vigil, and decided to see what could be learned from DuPont’s lodgings in Bearbinder Lane instead. The Earl had ordered him to stay away from the place, but Chaloner needed clues if he was to get to the bottom of the Frenchman’s death. He had no choice but to take the risk.

Outside, the sun bathed the city in the soft, gold light of a fine spring evening, and the scent of warm manure was in the air. As usual, Cheapside was busy, and Chaloner started uneasily when he passed St Mary le Bow and its bells began to chime, but then he relaxed. It was not the tenor tolling for a death, but all six bells beginning a series of sequences known as ‘change ringing’, which was becoming popular for weddings. The groom was waiting in the porch, and Chaloner hoped the lad’s pale, sweaty face derived from nerves, not the start of a fatal fever.

Beyond the church was a commotion, and he approached to see two houses with red crosses on their doors and watchers stationed outside. Small crowds had gathered around each, calling encouragement to the people who leaned out of the upstairs windows. Every so often, someone would dart forward for mischief, and the spectators would hoot and jeer when the watcher was obliged to chase them back.

‘My boy has a griping in the guts,’ shouted an angry man from one house. ‘We should not be locked in. We are bakers – our business will be ruined if we are gone for forty days.’

‘The searcher said it was plague,’ countered the watcher, fingering his sword uneasily. ‘And Mr Williamson gave orders that—’

‘And my baby is only teething,’ interrupted a woman from next door. ‘Look!’

She brandished the hapless tot out of the window. He howled in lusty alarm, and it was clear that there was very little wrong with him.

‘Plague rages in the homes of the rich, though,’ yelled a spectator. It was the loutish Oxley, and while he spoke, his daughter was busily picking the pocket of the man next to her, while his son lobbed pebbles at the watchers. ‘Yet
they
are not locked away.’

‘Do you mean Essex House?’ asked one watcher. ‘Because that was spotted fever.’

‘It was the plague,’ countered Oxley. ‘And two victims are already in their graves.’

The watchers tried to deny it, but Oxley overrode them with a lot of bombast that had the crowd bawling indignant agreement. Then reinforcements arrived in the form of Williamson’s soldiers. The mood of the onlookers grew uglier, and the situation might have turned violent had Baron and his trainband not appeared. A few sharp words from the King of Cheapside sent most of the protesters slinking away, while Oxley was taken to one side, and whatever was murmured in his ear had him nodding sullen acquiescence.