The Whispering Swarm (54 page)

We would have to get into St James's. Molly would go ahead of us to open the secret south gate. The old passage ran from Whitehall Stairs at the river to St James's Palace. The passage had long been used by members of the royal family and household to come and go discreetly. This route might now be known to the Roundheads, who doubtless believed no one but those under arrest or exiled were aware of it. This was not what concerned Prince Rupert. He had explored St James's Palace as a boy, and knew of several older abandoned tunnels. One was built by Henry VIII, another by Elizabeth. They led up from the river. Apparently Hampton Court had similar tunnels.

Cromwell was likely to put guards on permanent watch but Molly assured us she could deal with a soldier by whatever methods occurred to her at the time. She met neither Rupert's eye nor my own. The Palace of Whitehall itself was the largest in the world, a huge warren supporting every aspect of the royal entourage. A veritable Gormenghast, it sprawled over a huge acreage. The river, still wide and shallow here, in those days before embankments, was currently frozen solid. It came close enough to the palace's south side. There, we stood the greatest chance of all being discovered together.

‘There will be Roundheads as thick as deer in the king's forest,' said Duval. After Rupert he had the closest familiarity with the royal compound.

‘Where's the best place to bury a needle?' Prince Rupert asked.

Porthos brightened. ‘With all the other needles.'

‘Precisely, my friend. There will be so many troops drafted in from the provinces, we'll be less conspicuous by flaunting our disguise. We'll go with caution at first. As soon as we see Roundheads we'll assume military order and proceed as a party of musketeers.'

‘Which essentially is what most of us are,' said Athos, almost to himself. Then he smiled his most charming smile around the table. ‘As trained soldiers we'll excite almost no suspicion. If any of you knows not how to march and so on, follow the others.' He looked towards me. I hadn't told anyone about my two years in the ATC preparing for induction into the RAF. It was a bit like joining the reserve. I would have had an advantage if they hadn't abolished national service within a whisker of my eighteenth birthday. One of the great ironies of my life. Up to now, at least.

‘I've had a little experience with a musket,' I said quietly. I didn't like to tell him that drill was about the best of that experience. The other experiences with loaded weapons had not gone well.

Once again we went over the plans.

The scaffold had been erected outside the Banqueting House, an independent building. Prince Rupert had lived at Whitehall until relieved by Charles of his generalship of the royalist forces. He knew the palace probably better than anyone. I was impressed by the plans and pictures. Whitehall was virtually autonomous and run like a small town. Countless buildings housed the apartments of scores of servants, general staff and aristocrats attached to the king's entourage. Built up over five hundred years, it represented every style of architecture.

Rupert told us how we'd take the passage to St James's Palace, rescue the king, substitute Jessup, and send the king back the way we had come. Disguised as executioners, I and the other three would get him to the Banqueting House in Whitehall proper. One of us, probably Rupert, would cut off Jessup's unworthy head. We would then make our escape by another passage known only to Prince Rupert.

Whitehall consisted of the remains of King Harold's royal residence and the Norman redoubt of William the Conqueror, with additions by all the Lancastrian, Tudor and Stuart monarchs. Kings and queens, princes and princesses had been married here. Turrets, steeples, chimneys and battlements rose next to tall red-brick buildings reminding me of Hampton Court or the Bishop's Palace in Fulham. Portland stone sat beside parts of the original buildings faced in white ashlar and with grey slate-finished roofs. I could see from the prints that the place was a firetrap but, when I suggested a bit of diversionary pyromania to give us a better chance, Rupert frowned and rejected the idea. For added secrecy and as a courtesy to our allies, he continued in French, which, of course, we all understood.

‘While we have to get in from the river by Whitehall Stairs, the old passage I spoke of runs from that to St James's. We'll leave by a more obscure passage. I discovered it as a boy and opened it up. Because I feared punishment, I hid what I had done. I'm reliably told that it has not been explored by Cromwell's people and can still be used. There will probably be one guard at the entrance to the first passage which will take us to the royal apartments where his grace will be prepared for his execution. From there, surrounded by his servants, courtiers and a guard of redcoats, he'll go to the Banqueting House. And from that to a specially prepared scaffold. With him will also be his chaplain, four masked executioners and the captain of the guard, probably Colonel Thomlinson, and soldiers guarding him. Once we have given Jessup's body up, we shall march off in the direction of Scotland Yard, in the eastern part of the palace.

‘The scaffold itself will be surrounded by many pikemen, musketeers and mounted troopers, all there to keep back the crowd and deter any direct attempt to save the king. That's why our only chance to arrange the substitution will be after he takes his constitutional with his dogs in St James's park. We can't do it anywhere else. There will be too many soldiers guarding him. The execution is to be at ten in the morning. The king will be bathed and dressed and will take communion with his chaplain Dr Juxon. When we're in the passage we'll have to watch for more guards but there are not likely to be many. The passage leads directly into his bathroom. At any other point it will be impossible to undress the king and dress Master Jessup, so there it must be. The king's grooms of the bedchamber will be overpowered for their own good so they shall not be judged parties to our plan.'

‘Will not Jessup's voice betray him?' Duval asked.

Prince Rupert had considered this.

‘If his last pint of alcohol doesn't kill him, it'll numb his voice for a good while. Any odd behaviour on Jessup's part will be taken for the king's terror at his coming death. No doubt his gentlemen of the chamber will surround him. He will also have some of his own people there. Drums and fifes will accompany him. They'll walk to the Banqueting House. Outside the House is the scaffold erected between Whitehall Gate and the gate leading from St James's. So our plan, as prepared, is to overpower any guards within the rooms and, dressed as redcoats, as we shall be under our cloaks the whole morning, accompany “His Majesty” to the Banqueting House and onto the scaffold erected outside. We'll need to take a prayer book to place in his hands. M'sieur Aramis, you shall be, if he won't agree, our Juxon. You have his build and general appearance. Meanwhile, Hyde will guide the king to the passage I'll show him on my map while Moll will be waiting. From there the king will be brought back to the Alsacia.'

To me the scheme still sounded impossible. Cromwell and his officers would surely anticipate every effort to rescue the king. And what if we got that far?

‘Are any of us to remain behind once Jessup's dead?' I asked from curiosity.

‘No. A rearguard is a luxury. Aramis, if disguised as the priest, will have to find his own way home. I'm anxious not to arouse suspicion. The tunnel is the best way out. Perhaps our greatest asset in that respect is Moll here.'

I looked up involuntarily. She was blushing, her own eyes downcast.

‘Without you, Moll, we cannot get through the first gate and the passage into St James's Palace. Shall you have your pistol with you?'

‘In my muff.' She held up her fur hand-warmer. ‘Don't worry. I'll have as much insurance as I can carry.'

‘So, while attention is on the king and the executioner holds up his head for the crowd to see, the others will head for deserted Scotland Yard and from there to Whitehall Stairs and the river.'

‘Which is frozen fast as we now know.'

I had not known that the whole river was frozen. I raised my eyebrows. ‘So no boat?'

‘No boat, but a road. And a good diversion. The citizens of London prepare a voluntary Frost Fair! It takes advantage of the public holiday. We have some chance of mingling with the crowds on the ice. With the king, we shall make our way first to Whitefriars Stairs and thence to the safety of Alsacia. The last steps of our plan we'll execute at nightfall when the other passengers shall accompany His Grace.'

‘They'll guess what's happened and who's involved! You can be sure of that.' Slowly Aramis fingered the silver and ebony crucifix at his throat. He considered the plans and engravings laid out on the table. ‘They will send men to our gates. Of that, I think, we can be certain.' The Abb
é
d'Herblay fingered his elegant beard, his beautiful features dark in thought. ‘This M'sieur Cromwell is a good strategist, correct?' He reached out a gloved hand to turn the prints, which included Prince Rupert's own sketches of the palace's secret passages. ‘He will have anticipated this business, perhaps?'

Prince Rupert nodded and smiled. ‘Absolutely. There's little chance that he hasn't. He'd relish the opportunity to lay a trap for us. That would deliver to him several of his greatest enemies.'

‘Particularly Your Highness.'

‘Indeed, but even Mazarin would be unable to save you, gentlemen,' Rupert addressed the musketeers. ‘And, since most are commoners, save me, you risk hanging, drawing and quartering while I can expect the mercy of the axe. No doubt we shall be accused of attempting to save a traitor from his just deserts.'

Everyone laughed at this apart from Molly and myself.

After discussing further details, Athos raised a languid hand. ‘How will you be certain, Your Highness, that Cromwell will allow this Frost Fair to take place? Did he not recently abolish Christmas?'

‘Under pressure from his left wing, probably.' That was my contribution. Everyone but Moll looked at me blankly. ‘His zealot Puritans,' I corrected myself. ‘From all I've learned, Cromwell is not that much of a religious hypocrite.'

‘Yet Puritans have his ear, I think,' said Aramis. ‘Not so?'

‘I suspect anything which distracts from the possibility of the people storming the scaffold will be welcome tomorrow,' Duval suggested. ‘There are a good many Londoners who worship godless commerce better than their maker or His representative on Earth. They'll be in a celebratory mood. Possibly their last chance to rob honest folk. All the worst elements of the nation gather in London just as you find in Paris the most
parlement Frondeurs
.'

‘May I ask what is your quarrel with
les Frondeurs,
m'sieur?' asked Aramis, frowning. He was himself a supporter of the aristocratic arm of that movement.

‘None, m'sieur, at this moment. Forgive me if I inadvertently…'

But Athos was smiling now, as was Porthos. ‘Who could guess our friend's allegiances? Come now, Aramis! Let's not quarrel over politics. All of us here have seen where such arguments lead, with friend fighting friend and all important matters diverted! Bad blood infects the entire being. No?'

With a small smile and a slight inclination of his head Aramis relaxed. ‘I agree. The Frost Fair will suit us very well, assuming Cromwell allows it.'

‘It has not been
dis
allowed,' said Jemmy, who had been going about the town learning what he could, ‘and it was running earlier today when I walked beside the river with my lady. The people make merry and play at who knows what to take their thoughts away from the enormity of the act being done in their name. The Puritans allow it this once as it makes their work easier.'

It surprised me to know that some of us could come and go like that or, for that matter, had lady friends in seventeenth-century London. There was no real reason I should have been surprised, of course, since most of the people around the table were from that era. I should have been more surprised that I was one of the few who had gone to at least three different worlds pretty much at will.

Duval might well be a likely traveller between dimensions. A loyal Stuart supporter in the entourage of the Duke of Richmond, he had built himself a fine house in Wokingham, where my own Methodist weaver ancestors, down from Yorkshire, had settled. They remembered him in the village. That his exploits dated from Restoration times—the 1660s—was now a relatively minor issue for me. I had become used to meeting men and women representing different eras. Had it been seemly I could have quoted Duval's famous epitaph:

Here lies Du Vall:

Reader, if male thou art,

Look to thy purse;

If female, to thy heart.

If Dick Turpin, who lived a century or so later, could drink with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, then I should be surprised if Duval could not also be there. In one penny blood I'd read Duval, Turpin and Tom King all met Bonnie Prince Charlie at Colloden and voyaged to America to battle redskins.

Popular fiction, of course, mixed up all kinds of dates. I had fleetingly seen Pecos Bill in the pub earlier. One of our companion publications when I was editing
Tarzan
had the legendary Texan as a contemporary of Calamity Jane, Davy Crockett and Buffalo Bill. Earlier myth cycles had Attila the Hun threatening the France of Charlemagne or King Arthur dealing with invading Saracens. I had come to accept that I had somehow slipped into a world where myth was being created and was real and active. Regular history was of relatively little consequence. Perhaps, after people like us had interfered with time and history frequently enough, there were worlds now where King Arthur actually did go man to man with his great, almost equally mythic enemy, Saladin! I hoped to learn a bit more of the truth behind this process later, if I had the chance. Naturally it had occurred to me that this process might be a projection of my own mind. To keep sane, I had to believe the reality around me.