Murder on High Holborn (28 page)

‘
Your
creditors. The purchases were made in
your
name, as is right in a marriage.’ Joan saw Chaloner’s angry expression, and prudently hastened to change the subject. ‘Leving visited us again last night and said you must meet him at the Talbot at ten o’clock.’ Even though she was playing with fire, she could not resist a spiteful smile. ‘You will have to run or you will be late.’

Chaloner did indeed have to run, as there were no hackneys available. He arrived, breathless and sweating, just as the clocks were striking the hour, to discover that the Talbot’s hall had been hired for another large gathering of Fifth Monarchists. Again, the participants were disguised as lawyers, and again, the real men of law were intensely interested.

Recalling Jones’s irritation that he had not donned suitable robes the last time, Chaloner filched a set that had been left unattended near the door. They were too small, but still looked better than the bizarre attire worn by most other conspirators, all of whom seemed to be chatting about feeding chickens, airing beds or paying the milkman. He felt a wave of despair that so many ordinary folk had allowed themselves to become embroiled in such dangerous business.

Leving was waiting. ‘You are late,’ he said, with one of his vacant grins. ‘I was beginning to think I might have to monitor this meeting alone.’

Chaloner scowled at him. ‘What did I tell you about sending messages to my home?’

Leving waved a careless hand, leaving Chaloner slightly wrong-footed: he was intimidating when he was angry, as Joan had just seen, yet Leving did not seem bothered in the slightest.

‘I have been working on my list of members,’ he chirruped merrily. ‘I have names for twelve of the Sanhedrin and about twenty of the folk here today. How many have you got?’

Chaloner was unwilling to tell him that he had no intention of compiling such a register, but was spared from inventing an excuse when Manning arrived, his fat, grave face grey and strained. He was limping more heavily than ever.

‘Chilblains bothering you?’ asked Leving sympathetically.

Manning nodded. ‘They are agony. Look.’ He slipped a foot from his shoe to reveal a sorely chapped heel. ‘And these rough stockings do not help. I wish we were not at war, because then I could have bought some nice soft Dutch ones.’

‘Did you retrieve Sherwin after abandoning him to robbers?’ asked Chaloner, thinking it was testament to Manning’s selfishness that he viewed the conflict in terms of his own comfort.

Manning gulped in alarm. ‘I did no such thing! He is quite safe.’

He pushed past Chaloner and entered the hall. Chaloner followed to see upwards of a hundred people there, and could tell by the way some were gazing around that many had not been to the Talbot before – they were different from the last two hundred. His heart sank. Perhaps Jones was right to claim he had ten thousand followers. And perhaps he had chosen Easter Day for his uprising not for its religious significance, but because his supporters would be in the city for Lady Day business.

‘Lord!’ breathed Leving. ‘The only way to find out everyone’s name – and remember them for Williamson – will be to ask them as they leave and write them down. Do you think the Sanhedrin would notice?’

Chaloner rubbed his head, wondering yet again whether Leving was in complete control of his faculties. Indeed, he was surprised the man was still alive, and thought Williamson was criminally reckless to use such a buffoon, no matter how desperate for spies he declared himself to be. But there was no time for further reflection, because the dour-faced leaders had arrived. They took their places at the front of the hall, and Jones raised his right hand. Immediately, the Sanhedrin began to chant the oath about secrecy and loyalty, led by Strange in a booming voice that was probably audible on High Holborn. Most of the assembly looked bemused, though, and Jones had to repeat it a phrase at a time, so that they could say it after him. Chaloner was uncomfortably reminded of his wedding vows.

‘Horses,’ said a baker briskly, when everyone was settled and Jones declared the meeting open. ‘Have you hired any yet? Our troops will not be very impressive if they are obliged to race through the streets on foot, and time is getting short now – less than seven days.’

‘It is all in hand,’ replied Jones smoothly.

‘And weapons?’ asked Atkinson. He looked troubled. ‘I dislike violence, but our enemies will be armed, and we cannot meet muskets and cannon with sticks and garden forks.’

‘They are ready, too,’ replied Jones. He smiled, but his reptilian eyes stayed cold, which did nothing to relieve the anxieties of the audience. More than a few exchanged worried glances.

‘By this time next week, King Jesus will have moved into White Hall,’ declared Strange firmly. ‘And King Charles will be in the very lowest level of hell.’

‘Will he?’ asked Ursula unhappily. ‘I know he heads a craven government, which bleeds us dry with taxes for debauchery and foreign wars, but I should not like to be responsible for him ending up in hell. He is probably a good man at heart.’

‘He is a usurper!’ cried Strange angrily. ‘And he will not be alone in his fiery pit. There will be plenty of others to share his fate.’

‘Good,’ said Leving, amiably. ‘He will have someone to talk to. Eternity is a very long time, after all.’

The Sanhedrin exchanged startled glances at this remark, although a number of the audience nodded sage agreement. Jones recovered quickly.

‘I have written a pamphlet on precisely this subject,’ he announced pompously. ‘It denounces the Stuart usurper’s profligacy, along with his wickedness in arranging firework displays and rebuilding theatres while his poorest subjects struggle to pay the coal tax.’

‘Have you?’ asked Ursula politely. ‘I do not believe I have read it.’

Jones grimaced. ‘I cannot afford to publish it yet, so you will have to wait until the Last Millennium. But my musings will make you understand why there is no need to feel sorry for a monarch who places frivolous entertainment before the welfare of his people.’

‘I want to know details of the plan,’ said the one-armed sailor named Tucker. ‘It is all very well saying that King Jesus will appear on Sunday, but what must we do to ensure it exactly?’

‘We have been through this,’ snapped Jones. ‘I shall reveal particulars nearer the time.’

‘How much nearer?’ pressed Tucker, unfazed by Jones’s angry response. ‘You will tell me today, or I am leaving the city and you will have to manage without me.’

‘Very well,’ sighed Jones, when it became clear that most of the assembly felt the same. ‘By the end of Easter Day, we shall have seized the Tower, killed the King, set London alight, established a republic and redistributed all private property. Does that answer your question?’

There was a stunned silence, followed by a clamour of questions and cheers. Jones folded his arms with an air of finality, while Chaloner stared at him, astounded that he thought he could achieve so much in so short a span of time.

‘We should execute the government, too,’ said Strange, audible only by virtue of having the loudest voice. ‘Then they will not make a nuisance of themselves in the Last Millennium.’

‘No!’ cried Ursula. ‘Politicians have just as much right to enjoy the Glorious Design as the rest of us, and some are decent people.’

‘But not many,’ stated Jones. ‘As my pamphlet outlining their sins will demonstrate.’

The debate dragged on until Strange silenced it with an impassioned speech about liberty in place of tyranny and godliness instead of idolatry, concluding with the claim that it was every man’s duty to fight against enemies of the truth. It was idealistic claptrap, but it calmed those who thought Jones’s plans were overly daring.

Jones ended the meeting with a prayer, after which people filed out, some forgetting to don the disguises they had worn in, and others wrapping their cloaks over their faces in such a bizarre parody of stealth that the lawyers in the Talbot stared in astonishment.

Soon, only the Sanhedrin remained. Atkinson was pale and puffy eyed as he thanked Chaloner for attending Snowflake’s funeral. Ursula handed the stockinger a clean handkerchief when he started to weep, and the others stood in awkward silence until he had regained control of himself.

‘The meeting went well,’ he managed to snuffle eventually. ‘Our people are eager for victory.’

‘I approve of your aims,’ said Tucker to Jones. ‘But I think they are too ambitious for a single day. We will never get it all done, especially if we stop for dinner.’

‘Then we had better fast,’ said Jones frostily. ‘In the name of Christ.’

‘I do not think we should incinerate the city, though,’ put in Ursula, ‘but we can certainly redistribute property. This coal tax is killing the poor. Literally.’

‘And a republic would be nice,’ added Atkinson wistfully. ‘It is difficult to have equal rights and justice for all when there are ruling aristocrats around.’

‘So who murdered Quelch then?’ asked Leving with an appalling lack of subtlety. ‘Perhaps it is a traitor – a foul deceiver who has been persuaded to betray his friends.’

Chaloner readied himself to make a dash for the door, sure someone was going to conclude that Leving was the culprit, along with his conveniently available gunpowder expert.

‘A traitor?’ gulped Tucker. ‘Surely not!’ Then a worried frown creased his face. ‘Yet someone
did
kill Quelch…’

‘It was not me,’ declared Strange, when more than one pair of eyes strayed in his direction.

‘His death is a serious blow,’ said Tucker in the taut silence that followed. ‘Perhaps we should postpone our venture, just to be on the safe side.’

‘And how will you explain that to King Jesus?’ asked Jones archly. ‘We have been preparing the way for months, and He will be disappointed if we falter now.’

‘We may have no choice,’ said a man whom Chaloner thought was named Venner. ‘I am happy to sacrifice my life for the Cause, but I do not want it to be in vain.’

‘It will not be in vain,’ vowed Strange, eyes blazing. ‘It will be for the Supreme Authority.’

‘Yet Tucker is right – Quelch’s murder is a serious blow,’ said Venner. ‘I shall feel happier when we know who killed him. Who saw him last?’

‘Not I,’ replied Strange immediately. ‘So thou canst stop eyeing me so accusingly. I have not seen him since we went to the hangings on Thursday.’

‘Is that so?’ asked Tucker, eyes narrowed. ‘Then did I imagine you together in an alehouse on Friday – the night he died? Do not deny it, Strange. You both spoke to me.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Strange, flushing red. ‘I forgot. Quelch took me to a tavern called Hell, in Old Palace Yard. Hast thou been there? It is not called Hell for nothing. A vile place, and typical of the low kind of establishment that he liked to frequent.’

‘Why did you lie, then?’ asked Leving baldly. Strange fingered his dagger, and Chaloner wondered whether he should bother to intervene if the burly Fifth Monarchist tried to plunge it into Leving’s heart. The investigation would be a lot easier without Leving’s bumbling ways threatening to expose them at every turn.

‘I did not lie,’ said Strange tightly. ‘It slipped my mind. What business is it of thine, anyway?’

‘Anything to do with this plot is our business,’ flashed Venner. ‘What did you talk about in this alehouse?’

‘Nothing of consequence. The plan. Its shortcomings.’

‘What shortcomings?’ asked Leving innocently.

‘The fact that thou art right – we
do
have a traitor in our midst,’ snarled Strange, becoming angry at the inquisition. ‘There have been rumours in the coffee houses about us, which means someone hath broken his sacred oath. I do not feel safe, and I told Quelch so.’

‘Why confide in him?’ asked Atkinson. ‘I thought you disliked each other.’

‘I was probing him, plying him with ale to see what he might confess in his cups,’ replied Strange tightly. ‘But the devil guarded his tongue and he revealed nothing, so I do not know who is responsible for sharing our secrets with the enemies of God. However, when I find out, I shall slit his gizzard and wrap his innards around his throat.’

‘Lord!’ gulped Leving, who could not have looked more guilty had he tried. ‘I am very thirsty. May I buy anyone an ale?’

Chaloner winced at the transparent attempt to change the subject, while Leving brandished his purse, an expensive item embroidered with a gold crest. It was not the sort of thing a common man would own, and told anyone with eyes that either he had stolen it or he had accepted payment from a wealthy man. And as accusations of treachery were being bandied about, he could not have produced it at a less opportune moment.

‘No, thank you,’ said Jones coolly. ‘However, this talk of traitors concerns me. I was unaware that anyone had broken faith with the Almighty by chatting about our intentions.’

‘Perhaps we
should
postpone the uprising,’ said Atkinson. ‘It would be unethical to risk lives needlessly. Did you see our followers today, desperate for change and their faces full of hope? We cannot endanger them without—’

‘God will protect them,’ interrupted Strange, and Chaloner saw he was relieved that the discussion had moved away from the murder of Quelch. ‘Dost thou not trust Him?’

‘Of course,’ replied Atkinson. ‘Although I confess I am more inspired by the philosophical and moral tenets of our Cause than the religious ones.’

‘I shall feel better if I know
how
you plan to seize the Tower, kill the King and all the rest of it,’ said Leving, beaming his foolish smile. ‘I shall need to buy a new sword if there is to be much fighting, because this one is a bit rusty.’

‘All in good time,’ said Jones smoothly. ‘However, you may certainly expect fireworks.’

‘Is that where Chaloner comes in?’ pounced Leving. ‘He will set explosions?’

Strange narrowed his eyes. ‘Thou hast always asked too many questions. Perhaps
thou
art the traitor.’ He surged to his feet and shoved his knife towards Leving’s throat.

‘Stop!’ Ursula looked horrified at her first taste of violence. ‘No bloodshed. Please!’

Strange released a sharp bark of laughter. ‘No bloodshed? What dost thou think will happen when our plan unrolls? Or dost thou believe that London will fall without a blow being struck?’