The Best of Men (38 page)

“Why did he bring you to this house, Isabella?” Laurence inquired, moving nearer to her on the bed.

“To recover from my illness. Why else?”

He let the question pass. “Thank you for telling me about Captain Milne. I think I’ll go and speak to him after we camp down tomorrow night.”

“No! You cannot go near him!” Isabella burst out, confirming to Laurence that he should be wary of her offer. “Don’t you see? If he has heard that you may be working for Hoare, you’ll scare him into silence.
I
must address him first – he will require persuasion to come forward.”

“What sort of persuasion did you have in mind?”

“You are annoying,” she snapped, heaving the Bible at him with both hands.

“Ow,” he cried, as it smacked him on the kneecap; and he picked it up and held it away from her.

“Give it back!” she ordered, though she had started to laugh, not as she had before, but in a spontaneous, unaffected manner. “Beaumont, I’m sick of us arguing,” she said, once she had composed herself. “Can we be friends again?” She extended her hand to clasp his, as would a man. “Now, will you let me address Captain Milne? And then you can bring him to Falkland.” Laurence shrugged, and nodded. “Did you speak to his lordship about this?”

“Er … not yet.”

“You should.” She released his hand and glanced away. “I pray you are not all slain in battle, before we can arrange the meeting.”

“At least it would be the end of our tribulations,” Laurence joked.

She did not seem amused. “You mustn’t be too valorous, Beaumont, when you are in the field.”

“You’ve no need to worry about that.”

They regarded each other in silence, and he had the impression that she was lonely in a way that he understood. He would have liked simply to hold her. But he rose to leave.

“Good night, Isabella,” he said.

“Good night, Beaumont,” she said, with a sweet, triste smile.

Back in his chamber, he stared out of the window into darkness, twisting Khadija’s bracelet round and round his wrist. He should get rid of the damned thing, he thought; it was blackened from wear. Shutting his eyes, he tried to picture Juana’s face, and was disturbed to find that he could recapture only the sketchiest memory of it, though he could easily recall so many other faces from his past. Perhaps, in the words of Khadija, the poison had left his system. But to acknowledge this was no consolation.

“You have stopped going out these past nights, Monsieur,” Juana remarked one evening in Paris, as they ate supper together.

He paused to reflect. Though he was not sure why, more and more he had tended to stay at home with her in their lodgings not far from the fashionable Marais, wasting his time over the indecipherable letters. A month had slipped by without any sign of the Englishman’s servant, and Laurence would have suspected that she had lied about seeing the man in Paris, if not for the fact that he could rarely persuade her to leave the house, and only with him.

“It is nearly May,” she continued, deliberately. “The roads should be dry by now.” He made no reply. “Monsieur, I should like to set out for Spain.”

“Why not,” he said.

“So you will come with me!”

“Oh, Juana, don’t start that again.”

“Have you never been to your mother’s homeland?” He shook his head. “Are you not curious to travel there?”

“Not for the moment,” he replied, thinking that he was not taking advantage of the city’s pleasures as he should. He had become too
lethargic, too habituated to her company; they were behaving like some old married couple.

That same evening, he went out prowling in search of amusement. At a drinking house nearby he struck up conversation with a party of men and women who were celebrating someone’s birthday. They were young, attractive and lively, and flirtatious in the French style, teasing each other about their latest conquests, and boasting as to how ingeniously they had managed to deceive their spouses. He found himself enjoying their urbane cynicism, and as the night wore on, he could predict how it would end. A coquettish creature named Angelique suggested that he and she take a room; and afterwards she insisted on another assignation, and then another.

Over the next week, however, he wearied of her moods, her obsessive attention to matters of dress and social etiquette, and her interminable stories about an overzealous husband of whom she clearly hoped he would be envious. Just the sound of her voice began to irk him, particularly since she refused to shut up even during the act of love. One day he rose, dressed, kissed her goodbye, and left without telling her that it was finished between them.

Juana had not once asked him where he had been, and he thought no more of the affair until, on a sunny morning as he was lazing in his chamber, three men burst in and hauled him from his bed. In the bluntest terms, they introduced themselves as Angelique’s husband, brother, and father. Unarmed and outnumbered, Laurence could not win the fight that ensued, and eventually the aggrieved husband sliced open his lower lip with a stiletto while the other two held him down. They were about to tear off his breeches and inflict worse damage when he was rescued by the arrival of Juana, brandishing the Englishman’s sword. Her ear-splitting shrieks alerted some lodgers from next door, and the intruders were chased away, though they swore to return.

“What knaves, to come at you three against one,” Juana said, hunting out a clean cloth to staunch the blood dripping from his mouth. “Who were they?”

“Never seen them before in my life,” Laurence mumbled, shaken.

Very gently, she attended to the wound; and as he looked up at her face, he considered it more beautiful, without a hint of artifice, than Angelique’s could ever be, even with all the skilful tricks she employed to improve upon nature.

“Now we both have enemies here,” said Juana. “Let us leave Paris, Monsieur.”

He agreed, pondering nonetheless how conveniently the incident had worked in her favour. “As thanks for saving my manhood, I’ll take you to the Spanish border,” he said. “That’s my limit.”

By afternoon they were packed and had set out, walking their horses over the busy Pont Neuf, through crowds of people buying and selling from shops that lined the bridge. Juana seemed a little nervous, as she always was in public, glancing about surreptitiously and staying very close by his side. Then suddenly he felt her grip his hand. “Look behind you,” she hissed.

He turned, expecting to see Angelique’s vengeful kin coming after him. But instead, at a distance, he espied a more familiar figure, tall and bulky, wearing a hat pulled low over his face.

“Not gone ten bloody miles,” Wilmot grumbled, as the Royalist army made camp after their first day on the march; there were fourteen thousand men settling down for the night across a swath of countryside. “At this rate, we’ll reach London by Christmas.”

“Essex must be moving no faster.” Laurence held out a leather flask. “Here – from Mrs. Fulford.”

“Bless her heart.” Wilmot sampled the contents. “How could you
reject a woman of such singular forethought, you ingrate? I suppose you had your sights set on the luscious Mistress Savage. Tell me, did you get up her nightgown before we left Shrewsbury?”

“No. Did you?”

“She said she would have liked it,” Wilmot said complacently, “but she was worried that I might catch her illness.”

“How considerate of her,” said Laurence, feeling buoyed by this news. “Wilmot, I’ll see you later. I have to talk to a friend of mine.”

He had ascertained earlier where the main body of Prince Rupert’s Horse was encamped. After an hour of riding about and making inquiries, he found Radcliff’s troop and was fortunate to spot Ingram leaving the fire around which his companions were huddled. Moving off towards a clump of bushes, Ingram stopped to unlace. Laurence waited for him to finish before addressing him.

“Good to see you, man. Where are you camped?” Ingram asked, as he refastened the front of his breeches.

“About three miles north.”

“Not very clement for the middle of October, is it. I wish I’d brought a thicker pair of stockings. You know, Beaumont, I’ve been wanting to speak to you.” He led Laurence a little further away from the camp before speaking again, in a lower voice. “You remember what you asked me, about Radcliff and the sword?”

“Ah yes,” Laurence said.

“You wouldn’t believe – that day I gave it to him, I’d never seen him act so strangely.”

“Why, what did he do?”

“Well,” Ingram began, “as I may have told you, he’d gone off to buy some horses, but he couldn’t find any for love or money, and he returned very disappointed. I thought it would cheer him tremendously to receive your gift. But as soon as I mentioned to him that you’d come by, he turned pale as a ghost.”

Laurence caught his breath. “That
is
strange.”

“He turned even paler when I showed him the sword. And when I said it was a wedding present from you, he became almost angry! He said he didn’t understand why you would part with your sword when we were about to engage in battle.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I told him it was just like you – how when we were at Merton together, I’d have to bite my tongue on many occasions because if I let slip that I admired something of yours, you’d wear me down with all the arts of persuasion if I refused to take it.” Laurence smiled, touched by the warmth in Ingram’s tone. “He made some comment to the effect that generosity comes easily to those born into wealth,” Ingram continued. “I found that snide. I said – and I know you’ll forgive me, Beaumont – that you were always in funds, but not because of your birthright. I suppose I wanted to provoke him, so I told him that you looked after yourself by gaming, which ensured your freedom from the family purse, if not from their judgement. I even told him you paid for my first woman.”

“I
did
?” Laurence murmured, his mind on Radcliff.

“Don’t you remember? You insisted that I couldn’t pass my seventeenth birthday without losing my virginity at an Oxford brothel. And that night the deed was done, though too fast for me to be proud of it. You kindly assured me that I would improve with practice.”

“I’m sure we’ve both improved since then,” Laurence said, laughing. “Did Radcliff share any similar confidences in return?”

“No! He told me such pursuits were unworthy of me, and he hoped I’d given them up. That made
me
angry, and I said if he thought the sword was unworthy of
him
, he should give it back to you. He apologised profusely then. I think I’d struck on a sensitive issue. I’ve observed before that he has a sore spot when it comes to social rank, and he may resent you for what you are, and for your
ability to be generous. But he
was
grateful, in the end.” Ingram hesitated. “Why did you ask me that question – about how he would receive the gift?”

“Oh, just to know what sort of person he is,” Laurence replied.

“You gave him a priceless sword to test his character?” Ingram shook his head. “I think you did it for me, because I esteem him. And that’s the sort of person
you
are. The sort of friend, I should say.” Laurence said nothing, but wished guiltily that this were true. “Beaumont, why not join us by the fire? I’m sure he’ll be glad of a chance to thank you. If it doesn’t matter to you, it does to me.”

“Then I shall,” Laurence said.

As they came nearer, he saw Radcliff rise and break into a smile that was impossible to read in the poor light. “Mr. Beaumont, I can’t express how overwhelmed I was by your present,” he said smoothly, indicating the sword hanging at his side. “There are few craftsmen more skilled than the Toledo swordsmiths. Did you obtain it when you were in Spain?”

“No, in The Hague.” Laurence moved closer, to observe him.

Radcliff returned his gaze with perfect sang-froid. “It must have cost you a fortune.”

“On the contrary, it cost me almost nothing.”

“Indeed. Well I’m still honoured, although I pray you do not regret your largesse.”

“Why should I?”

“You may not find another sword as well made before we go into battle. As we both know, those inferior blades often snap in the midst of a fight.”

“I’ll have to watch out, then.”

“That you will,” Radcliff agreed, his voice now distinctly tense.

“Good night, Sir Bernard,” Laurence said, bowing courteously.

Radcliff blinked several times but made no response.

Ingram took Laurence by the elbow and steered him away, back towards the bushes. “For God’s sake, man,” he chided, when they were out of earshot, “Radcliff did thank you for the sword. Why insult him by telling him how little you paid for it?”

“I was only being honest.”

“What
is
there between the two of you? It’s as though –”

“My dear friend,” Laurence interrupted, “I’m sorry if I annoyed him, but you know me, I can’t help myself in these situations. And he should loosen up a bit. He’s got no sense of humour.”

“Well,
you
should know by now that not everyone appreciates
yours
. I shall have to calm his ruffled feathers.”

“I hope I haven’t ruffled yours,” Laurence said, as he mounted his horse.

“No, no,” Ingram said, starting to smile. “Experience has inured me to your provocations. Good night, Beaumont.”

“Good night.”

With a sigh of relief, Laurence nudged his horse’s sides and trotted away. Perhaps he had been unwise to bait Radcliff in front of Ingram, yet it had been worth the risk. There was still no tangible evidence to confirm that Radcliff and Mr. Rose were the same person, and Radcliff might well have had his pride wounded upon receiving an extravagant present so casually tossed off by someone of higher rank. But his voice had the timbre of Mr. Rose’s in Aylesbury, and after years of studying the most insignificant tics and gestures and flickers of the eye, Laurence felt certain that he had his man. If Radcliff was involved both with the conspiracy and the Earl of Pembroke, then what might be the true aim of Pembroke’s secret negotiations? Intriguing, Laurence thought. He should suggest that Falkland be cautious in any dealings with Pembroke, just in case. And he must also be careful. Any accident might happen in the midst of combat, and it would be most ironic if he were to end up skewered by a Toledo blade.