The Licence of War (22 page)

The sole blight to his happiness was the state of his friend. Beaumont’s skin was sallow, and the naturally dark pigment under his now-bloodshot eyes had extended down to his prominent cheekbones; he looked as if he had not eaten in weeks, although he had obviously been drinking. The left side of his jaw was bruised purple, and he could not wear gloves, despite the cold, because of scuffed knuckles on both hands. Before setting out from Oxford, Ingram had noticed on his clothes an overpowering smell of liquor and ladies’ perfume. “Don’t ask,” he had said to Ingram, and with unusual restraint he had let pass the jokes Tom had cracked at his expense.

“There’s Moreton-in-Marsh in the distance and you’ve barely spoken,” Ingram remarked. “You’re not far from home. I hope by then you’ll be able to hold a conversation.” Beaumont said nothing, so Ingram went on, “I gather you were engaged in some sport.”

“Last night was particularly excessive.”

“Ending in a brawl, I presume?” Beaumont nodded. “Over cards or women?”

“Cards. And I wasn’t even cheating,” Beaumont said, with an air of mock outrage.

“And then what happened – were you thrown in gaol?”

“Wilmot’s rank saved me from the indignity. As you once told me, it pays to have such friends.”

“Well, please don’t get into any fights at
my
wedding,” Ingram said, only half joking; the Beaumont brothers had drawn blood at Elizabeth’s, after Beaumont had been caught with Isabella Savage up in his chamber.

Beaumont smiled, in the open, affectionate way that had endeared Ingram to him since their youth at College. “It would be a bore to repeat myself.”

“How
is
Mistress Savage?”

Beaumont’s smile vanished. “I haven’t seen her for the past twelve days. We bade goodbye to each other, and she left Oxford for an unknown destination – unknown to me, at any rate. It was she who
broke with me. I was at fault, and I don’t care to discuss the details. And now I’m supposed to contemplate a betrothal.” He told Ingram about Mistress Furnival, his talk with Lord Beaumont, and Isabella’s insistence that he marry the girl.

“I
am
sorry, Beaumont.”

“Don’t say it’s for the best.”

“I won’t. How are you finding Lord Digby’s service?”

Beaumont jerked aside his head to spit. “I feel like an indentured slave stuck with an unscrupulous master – more than one, to be perfectly honest.”

Ingram glanced towards Tom, who not long ago had almost sent his brother to an excruciating death because of his mistaken suspicion about Beaumont’s loyalties. “You wouldn’t go over …”

“No need to worry, Ingram. After turning coat when I was abroad, I know what it is to live with the consequences. And here I’d cause great distress to those I love. I think my father would understand, but it would divide our family, and that I can’t do, in all good conscience. Moreover, I can’t fight for a side which would ruin his house and fortunes, given half a chance. His welfare is more important to me, in the end, than my jaded political convictions.”

“And Seward would never understand.”

“No, he wouldn’t, and there’s another reason for me to stay with the King. I also think Prince Charles could be a fine monarch one day, if he doesn’t succumb to the plague that’s raging within our camp.”

“Is there plague in Oxford?” Ingram exclaimed; he had not heard.

“A virulent and contagious strain – of mistrust, duplicity, and cynicism. I am very sick with it, and of it. The Prince isn’t yet infected, which makes his company a balm to my troubled soul. I’ve been giving him lessons in ciphering, on His Majesty’s request,” Beaumont added, less sarcastically. “As a student, he reminds me of myself: quick to learn when he’s interested and lazy when he’s not. And he shows a most precocious interest in the opposite sex.”

“As did you,” Ingram said, laughing.

“So,” said Beaumont, as if to switch the topic, “are all your family coming to the wedding?”

“No, just my brother Richard and Aunt Musgrave. Kate’s baby is a sickly child, and she was worried to travel with him, and Richard’s wife is pregnant again.”

“How are Kate and your aunt rubbing along?”

“They are not, as Aunt Musgrave will no doubt tell you. Kate’s the same ice queen as always, spoilt and ungrateful.”

“I do look forward to seeing your aunt,” said Beaumont. “She had some sage advice for me, in the past. This time I’m tempted to have a cry on her shoulder.”

“Or into her expansive bosom – she would relish that. My poor aunt! Her lands have been raided twice now by our troops, and she fears the next to descend on her may be from Parliament’s garrison at Gloucester.”

“You were right to warn my father about his house,” Beaumont recommenced, after a short silence. “He should hide some of his money and valuables, to preserve at least a portion of the family wealth. Then in the last resort, they could flee to France.”

Ingram reined in abruptly. “France? Do you truly mean that?”

Beaumont reined in also, and shot him a stare. “Oh yes. My father would be hard pressed to abandon the estate, but my mother is more practical. I believe she’d urge him to accept exile, if the war deteriorates into a bloodbath.”

“As
you
once said to me, military life has a tendency to corrupt.” Ingram glanced ahead again at Tom. “What a spirit of churlish revenge enters men’s nature when they’re
en masse
. They would deplore it, were it inflicted on their own families. In October, Tom’s troop sacked an estate, and while they were pillaging, they’d found occasion to shit and piss all about inside the house.”

“Did Tom attempt to stop them, or did he join in?”

“Who knows, but he threatened to raze the place. When I begged him not to, he said he’d spoken in jest. I wasn’t so sure.”

“You forget that he has a highly developed sense of humour.”

Ingram grinned as they spurred on their horses; this was more like his old friend. “I shall be pleased to have
you
as my brother, Beaumont. Just think: had you not whisked me from the battlefield after Edgehill and brought me to Chipping Campden, I’d be dead, or crippled.”

“I’m afraid I see it quite differently. If your horse hadn’t fallen on you and broken your leg, my sister would never have been moved to pity you in your convalescence, and she wouldn’t be where she is now: in the unenviable position of having to marry you.”

“That may be so,” Ingram said, struggling to keep a straight face. “But if not for Aunt Musgrave’s largesse, I would have been too poor to propose to her.”

“
Not
so, Ingram,” said Beaumont, smiling again. “I’d have won you a fortune at cards – through fair means or foul – to have
you
as my brother.”

Veech limped slowly into his first private audience with Oliver St. John; Pym’s desk was still draped in black cloth, he noticed. St. John stood by the window looking out. “Well, Mr. Veech?” was all he asked, and curtly, at that.

“Sir Montague Hallam of the Vintners’ Company has a new wife – a marriage of convenience, or so it would appear for an old invalid,” replied Veech. “His bride, Isabella Savage, is said to be a woman of uncommon beauty, and hasn’t long to wait to be a wealthy widow.”

St. John turned to face him. “I did not call you here to indulge in trivial gossip.”

“Mr. Pym can’t have told you, Mr. St. John: I’ve been watching Sir Montague for some time,” said Veech, as if he had not heard the reproof.

“You are wasting the resources of Parliament. Of all the Members in the City Corporation, Sir Montague is among the most loyal to us.”

Again, Veech paid no notice. “I received information from a man I’d posted in the alehouse where Sir Montague’s servants go to drink, near the Strand. Last week, his valet let slip that Lady Hallam gave up a lover to get married.” Veech saw a gleam in St. John’s eyes: how these Puritans relished a juicy scandal. “He eavesdropped on her talking with her maidservant. The lover’s name was Beaumont.”

“And what do you make of that, Mr. Veech?” said St. John, in a politer tone.

“Sir Montague conducts regular business with Oxford. I’ve searched his barrels randomly, unbeknownst to him, and found no evidence to incriminate him – thus far.”

“You searched them without proper warrant?”

“I shall have the warrant soon enough. As to other matters,” Veech went on, “Mr. Devenish informed my agent Draycott that Major Ogle is petitioning the House of Lords to be released from gaol with a keeper, to obtain materials to prosecute his case. He will then be allowed to escape. It’s my guess that he will stop, on his way to Oxford, to visit his purported friend Lieutenant-Colonel Mosely in the Aylesbury garrison.”

“A neat plan, sir,” St. John acknowledged. “He cannot suspect that both Devenish and the Lieutenant-Colonel are loyal to us.”

Veech bent to adjust his brace; Pym would have made some kind inquiry about his leg, but not St. John. “When the garrison is supposedly to fall to the Royalists, who might be commanded to occupy it?” he asked.

“Who can say, Mr. Veech – the honour might go to Prince Rupert himself. Pray God, Essex’s troops will be waiting to do battle with whoever is sent.”

“His Majesty’s beloved nephew would be a prize hostage for Parliament. Mosely could insist that he will open the gates only to Rupert.”

“Are you proposing that we lay a
trap
for the Prince?”

“Yes, Mr. St. John,” said Veech, wanting to laugh at the man’s outraged face; what a performance.

“Rupert may be wary of such a condition.”

“I doubt it, with the King so sure of Mosely.”

“Even if Rupert were drawn in, he and his Lifeguard would fight to the death.”

“No, sir: he’s a mercenary – a professional soldier, if you prefer – and they don’t
waste their resources
in bootless heroism when they know themselves outnumbered.”

St. John was clearly too deep in thought to catch Veech’s contemptuous use of his own phrase. “The Committee might consider it an … un-English tactic.”

“Rupert is half-German and un-English in his tactics. How else did he earn the title of Prince Robber, but by sacking English towns and demanding tribute from the citizens?”

“And his brother Prince Maurice is still worse. By spring, Mr. Veech, the Committee of Safety will have a change of title,” St. John said next. “The Scots Commissioners have requested it to be called the Committee of Both Kingdoms.”

“Another marriage of convenience,” said Veech, under his breath.

Blowing on his numbed hands, his stomach growling, Draycott paced up and down the chilly hall of Westminster. He had missed his dinner with Judith; Veech was an hour late for their appointment; and at half past three in the afternoon the light was fading, and he would have to go home, across the river, in bleak darkness. “I’ve waited long enough,” he muttered to himself.

Then he saw Veech hobbling through the main doors, leaning heavily on a cane. “Mr. Draycott – were you about to leave? Forgive me, sir: Mr. St. John kept me at Derby House. Let’s hire a hackney coach to take us to Ludgate. I daren’t walk the distance in this weather, or my leg will seize up.” When they had found a vehicle and
were settled in, rattling up the Strand, he asked, “How is Mr. Price?”

“How do you think – he’s been agitating for this meeting each time I see him,” Draycott replied irritably. “He will not talk to me. Why have you delayed, if you’re so anxious to capture Beaumont?”

“Is it not your practice as a lawyer to investigate the character of a witness, before you place any trust in his testimony?”

“Of course it is.”

Veech was wedging his left foot against the door, to protect his wounded leg from the bouncing of the coach. “Mr. Price has acquaintances everywhere,” he said. “At the Saracen’s Head, where we’re going, and in Cheapside, and in Southwark. They’re a mixed lot, as mixed as their accounts of him. Some report that he’s a thief and a cozening rogue, always out of funds because of his extravagant tastes. Yet the landlord of the Saracen’s Head, Robin Nunn, claims he’s a gentleman, and pays his bills. Price’s mistress, Susan Sprye, is employed by Nunn as a serving wench. Price has promised to marry her, Nunn says. The man I sent on my inquiries tried to talk to her, but she was tight-lipped and hostile.”

“Your description of Price matches a multitude of citizens in London.”

“You’re annoyed with me, sir, but be patient and hear me out. Mr. Price’s friend in Cheapside is Thomas Violet, a goldsmith, and a known agent for His Majesty who goes back and forth from Oxford. I should say, I’m letting him do so, for the present, until I decide to take him.”

“That is a curious association,” agreed Draycott.

“As curious as Price’s friends in Southwark. There used to be a famous brothel in Blackman Street. The bawd and her whores had since seen the error of their ways, and turned it into a house of prayer. Troopers searched it over and over, but could discover no signs that she was in her former business. She died in November, and a servant of hers named Peter Barlow now keeps the house. He’s served his spells in gaol. He was a practised miller of kens, if you’re acquainted with the term.”

“Are you testing me, Mr. Veech? He was a burglar.”

“And you must have come face to face with him, the night Beaumont escaped, when you went knocking on all the doors of Blackman Street.”

“It’s possible, though I’d be hard put to remember any one face, we questioned so many people.” Draycott chose not to add that he had been so horrified, confused, and subsequently embarrassed by the whole train of events that he had done his best to forget them.

“My man spoke with Mistress Edwards’ neighbour, who knows Mr. Price as a merry young blade. He visits Barlow to this day.”

“Price is an informer. We can’t expect him to be a choir boy.”

“He’s far from that. But let’s return to the night of Beaumont’s escape. A very short time before you knocked at Mistress Edwards’ house, the neighbour heard footsteps and pounding on her door. She was scared to tell the authorities – Barlow’s a rough fellow. And the next week, she heard there was sickness in the house, though Mr. Price went in and out freely. The house was shut to visitors until after the twenty-second of October, around when Price took his lodgings at the Saracen’s Head.”