The Bloodless Boy (34 page)

At Hooke’s prompting Tom had set up a measure in Hooke’s turret observatory, to mark the transition of stars relative to one another, over nights of stargazing. He had thrilled to the notion that a line could be drawn from him to a point above him on the highest celestial sphere. Of course, there may well be no such thing as a celestial sphere – the universe might simply never stop, and so the light reaching him from the most distant star was but an infinitesimal part of the light that it sent out into the universe; an expanding globe of light stretching out, into infinity, overlapping with all of the other spheres of light from all of the other stars, all quite oblivious of him. Yet every visible star did this, sending at least a portion of its light, tiny though it may be, his way.

Hooke and Harry had taken him to Fish Street Hill and the Monument to the Conflagration, to show how it could be used as an immense vertical telescope. Hooke had explained to him the notion of stellar parallax, the changing position of a star as observed at different times of the year, that, with such a telescope, could be used to gauge the distances to other planets and stars.

Harry felt again the impact through the fabric of the pillar as the man hit the ground.

He could have held him, but instead he let him go.

‘. . . This is the standard God hath pitched in every one of our hearts, for the trial of ourselves, either for our justification, or condemnation, of every word and action. Now, to make every one sensible of the greatness of this blessing, consider; it is not only given to augment and increase knowledge, it is given on purpose to allure and persuade men into a liking of truth, into a love of truth . . .’

Harry stared miserably into the small hole dug for Tom.

He had decided to carry on with the business of the blood-drained boys, and with the cipher, despite Robert Hooke’s wishes, and to keep the progress of his investigation from the Curator. A childish, selfish decision. One that had led them tumbling into the depths that Hooke had warned against.

Hooke, after the taking of Sir Edmund from the waterwheel, had asked him from where Harry found such disregard for self-preservation. Do you wish not to see old age? Hooke had asked. An old man’s question, Harry had thought at the time. But now, he saw the wise judgment behind it. If he had followed instruction, Tom would still be crashing about Gresham’s, enjoying his childhood, learning his trade. Perhaps he would have become as skilled and as famous as Robert Hooke himself.

Tom now had no existence allowed to him, as these drained boys had none.

‘. . . The veil of ignorance, that is come over the sons and daughters of men, through sin, transgression, and rebellion, is very great. The Lord our God, that made us, hath not left us in that state of darkness, blindness, and ignorance, but through the riches of his mercy and goodness, hath found out a way, to command that light should shine out of darkness, into our hearts, for all that the Devil did to darken man, to alienate and estrange him from his Maker . . .’

Harry could have left off the investigation before – perhaps he should have – but he could not do so now.

Which Devil estranged you from your Maker? You cannot take joy from these words, or sustenance. You must find the man who killed Tom. You must find the man who wished you dead, but who instead killed an innocent child.

Observation LVI
Of the Light of Grace

Grace Hooke lay in her bed, trying to fend off waking. She pushed her face into the pillow, feeling the texture of its thick, crisp linen. She could feel the hem of her nightgown scratch slightly on her calves, the stitching coming loose. She pulled up her knee and poked the separating hem with her toe, lazily thinking of repairing it at some later time.

After Tom’s death her sleep had been constantly broken, disturbed by strange dreams of falling from London Bridge, but never hitting the water. Except it was not her; it was a figure dressed in black, like a wicked angel.

She heard footsteps, their sound changing as they left the loose stones of the quadrangle and went onto the paving that surrounded the College. She hoped they would pass on by. She had heard her uncle leave earlier, and Mary after that, and then she had gone back to sleep.

She sighed, and picked at a crust of dried sleep from the corner of her eye, and rolled over. Just some more time in my bed, she thought. After Tom’s burial last night it seemed not much to ask.

There was the knock.

*

Outside, in the bright sunshine of a crisp London morning, the rain stopped and the smoke lifted, Harry had with him more of his notes of Thomas Whitcombe’s
Observations
Philosophical
. Without his keys, he waited for a while, listening with his ear pressed to the door, but there was no sound of movement.

Had Robert Hooke left already?

He recalled the times when Tom’s face had appeared at the window directly above, when he would shout down to him whether the Curator was in or out, or relay his master’s messages to him.

He knocked again, more assertively, knowing that Hooke became ever deafer, doubly so after the explosion in the cellars.

This time – just as Harry turned to go – the window opened, and it was Grace’s face that he saw above him. He blinked up at her stupidly, strong sun in his eyes, unable to form any words of greeting to her. She had evidently just woken, for her long hair was loose, unbrushed, and she had a map of the creases of her sheets imprinted on one side of her face. He could see the top of her nightgown.

‘Why do you all rise so early?’ she complained.

‘Will you let me in?’ Her appearance made him breathless, as if he had run the way to Gresham’s.

‘But no one is here,’ she replied.

‘In truth, you are here, Grace.’

She regarded him for a moment, and then her head disappeared from the window. He had been too bold. What must she now think of him? Some men found it easy to pursue a woman. He worried too much, was too obviously nervous and inexperienced; it made him unattractive to them.

Then the key turned on the inside of the door. Grace beckoned him in, retreating from the sting of cold from the lobby’s flagstone floor, and from the harsh air invading from the quadrangle.

‘It was always Tom who greeted me, when coming though this door,’ Harry managed, sounding hoarse. ‘I shall always think of him when using it.’

To his consternation, Grace’s eyes suddenly filled. Although she tried to wipe her sorrow away, the tears refused to stop. She cried silently, her mouth behind her hand, her shoulders shaking.

Harry did not know whether to draw nearer, or stay exactly where he was. He knew he should comfort her, but how?

He put his hands on hers, to still the shaking of her arms, and then took a handkerchief from inside his coat, to help her dry her eyes. He carefully wiped them, until she took the cloth from him. She looked at him, holding his gaze with hers.

‘Grace, I wonder – .’

His question was never finished.

Grace kissed him, her mouth wet from her tears, firmly holding his head in her hands, as if worried he might break free.

Observation LVII
Of the Popish Plot

Robert Hooke sent a cautious look over the quadrangle before locking his door and bolting it, his face still touched with pink from the fire in the cellars.

‘I slept not well,’ Hooke told Harry, as he walked up the stairs. ‘I had an obstruction in my stomach, which kept me restless for much of the night. This morning I voided myself of a shit, which eased my discomfort.’

‘Good morrow, Mr. Hooke,’ Harry greeted the Curator, with a smile. ‘I am sorry to hear of your suffering. I stayed up reading more of Thomas Whitcombe. He separated the blood using centrifugal force, bringing forth its red, white and yellow parts. He experimented on drying them, then reliquifying them with distilled water.’

Hooke sucked in his cheeks. This morning he felt easier, but he could not help thinking of who had killed Tom, and whether Thomas Whitcombe would be found to pay for his crimes.

He would go back to his College work as Professor of Geometry, and his Royal Society work as Curator and new Secretary, and his City work as surveyor and architect of the rebuilding of London. Montague House was near finishing, and the Bethlehem hospital wanted repairs, faulty work having brought down a ceiling. The unfortunate meeting at the Fleet had brought him only unwelcome danger, and the death of Tom, for which he had blamed Harry.

Now Hooke saw that he himself was responsible; it was he who had brought Harry into the business, by passing him the cipher. He had done this selfishly, in order to follow his desire to replace Grubendol as Secretary.

He should have known that Harry, stubborn since a child, would follow it as far as he could, finding out those who might help him uncover the meaning of the letters, and those who might know more of the blood-drained boys.

‘Have you seen the news, Harry?’ he enquired, wondering where Mary was to have let Harry in, once they were both sitting at his table in the drawing room, holding out a copy of the
Observator
.

‘I have been so immersed in deciphering, I have heard hardly a thing of the world.’

‘You have heard the bells? And there will be cannons fired. A great pageant is planned, after the death of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey.’

Harry took the news-sheet, and read of a Procession, starting at Moorgate, to Aldgate, and finishing at Temple Bar where a mock Pope was to be burned. It was all paid for by the Earl of Shaftesbury. There were also details of Edward Coleman’s crimes, with a transcript of his trial.

‘Coleman admits to writing letters to the French.’ Harry looked disbelievingly at the Curator. ‘The Queen is to be removed from Whitehall, voted for by parliament.’

‘There is a chalk as long as your arm between wishing the King’s death and seeking monies from France.’

‘Coleman is to be drawn to Tyburn, then hanged upon the gallows there, mutilated, disembowelled and quartered.’

‘He will be half dead by the time he gets to Tyburn,’ Hooke said grimly. ‘He will be stoned and bottled for all of his journey. With this procession today, and Coleman’s execution tomorrow, London has gone mad, quite mad.’

Harry read on, and then folded and placed the news-sheet down on the table. ‘There is no mention here of those who seek to use the blood of boys. Only of Papists, and assassins looking to overthrow the King and Church.’ He turned the news-sheet, rotating it on the surface of the table. ‘Sir Jonas has asked me to the Tower. He may know who the recipient boy was to be revivified. Otherwise, why press for the boys to be preserved?’

Hooke had his bony elbows on his table, his long chin resting on his hands. ‘If you go to him, Harry, then you risk being drawn into this too. Retribution against Coleman has been swift.’

Harry stared at the quarter of the news-sheet that showed after his folding of it. ‘This man, Titus Oates, here in the picture. I have seen him, on the night that I broke your lamp, being followed up the Fish Street pillar. He was with some soldiers. They were searching into houses.’

‘He will be unstoppable now. He is quartered at Whitehall, and given a pension to keep him. He will have half of London arrested before we may say Jack Robinson.’

‘The Justice suspected Catholic involvement in the deaths of the boys, yet nowhere have I found in Whitcombe’s notes a mention of those he worked for. If it is all a Catholic plan, then who benefits from his experimental trials?’

‘I know not, Harry, I know not. It is all confusion to me. Please have a mind for your own safety – you have shown a scant regard for it since Sir Edmund engaged our help.’ Hooke placed his hand onto Harry’s, seeking reassurance that Harry would follow his advice.

‘If I have learned nothing else in this New Year, I have learned circumspection.’

The clocks in Hooke’s drawing room began their chiming, a process that took a full minute as each clock reached the hour of nine. As one finished its sounding of the hour another was ready to take its place.

‘The King bade me go to Whitehall this morning,’ Hooke continued, ‘and he spoke of you. He wanted to know of your capabilities. Indeed he spoke of little else.’

‘What was your answer to him, Mr. Hooke?’ Harry asked, flattered but puzzled by the King’s interest.

‘I answered truthfully, and fully. You are a most able Observator, and you will, I doubt not, make for a proficient Curator. You are a natural philosopher, worthy of the name.’

‘I should leave for the Tower,’ Harry said, with a catch in his voice. He glowed from this tribute from Hooke, who so rarely gave praise that it was doubly affecting. ‘Sir Jonas has the answers, I am sure. The way will be blocked by soldiers, and the crowds will be drawn to watch this pageant.’

‘You will have a care, won’t you? The Royal Society would not want to lose you, and neither would I.’

‘Mr. Hooke, I am sorry about Tom. You were – .’

‘You are not to blame, Harry, and you must not blame yourself.’

Robert Hooke stood as Harry did, the table between them. With an unusual formality, the Curator shook Harry’s hand.

‘Mr. Hunt.’ It was the first time Hooke ever addressed him so.

‘Mr. Hooke.’

‘I have these for you.’ Hooke held out a bunch of newly cut keys, replacements for those Harry had lost at the Monument to the Fire of London.

Harry, his eyes feeling hot, descended the stairs down to the lobby, and out into the quadrangle of Gresham College.

Inside, Robert Hooke looked for Mary, but she was nowhere to be found. There was no sound from Grace, who presumably was still asleep.

The Curator put some more coal on the fire, sat back down, and picked up the
Observator
news-sheet.

Observation LVIII
Of Ashes

At Aldgate a dozen soldiers blocked the way. Harry waited, wanting Whitechapel, shuffling gradually closer towards the smaller arch, reserved for those going through on foot. The main arch had a barrier across it, the carts and coaches queuing back along Leadenhall Street, Poor Jewry Lane, and Shoemaker Row, their drivers swearing to themselves under their breath. On the other side of Aldgate the queues were even longer; all the people who made their way west, coming in early to get close to the Procession, were being stopped, the soldiers slower, and more thorough with those seeking to enter the City.

The figures of Peace, Charity, and Fortune looked down on him from the arch. They were illuminated by the noon sunshine, which warmed his back, and Harry could see from their benign expressions that they saw into his mind, and knew of its wonder at Grace’s kiss. He could not help smiling back at them, but his face became serious when he found himself next to be questioned.

‘Your name?’ The soldier, a belligerent sergeant, blocked him with a palm, his other hand resting on the handle of his sword in its scabbard, fingers opening and closing continuously as he asked the same questions of everyone going through.

‘I am Henry Hunt.’

The sergeant looked him up and down. ‘Your business?’

He wished to see Colonel Fields. He had omitted to tell Hooke of his plan to go back to the old soldier’s chapel. Hooke’s worries about Harry searching into the matter of the dead boys had kept him from it. Of all the men he had encountered during his search for the killer of the boys, Colonel Fields was dependable, trustworthy, and might say more of how Thomas Whitcombe had changed from being an Army chirurgeon for Parliament, going to slavery on the Earl of Shaftesbury’s sugar plantation, to becoming a
virtuosi
natural philosopher.