Exile's Return (4 page)

Hyde rose to his feet. ‘Then don't waste time, Lovell. Major-General Lambert and his Committee of Safety are trying to hold on to power in London. Elmhurst's death was intended as a show of strength.' He glanced at Longley. ‘Coming, Longley?'

Longley looked at his cup. ‘I will finish my ale, Hyde.'

Longley waited until Hyde had pushed his way back through the crowded inn, before pushing aside his empty cup.

‘Don't make an enemy of that man, Lovell,' he said. ‘He will control the throne when the King is restored.'

Daniel looked away. ‘I do not seek to make an enemy of him, Longley, but I have no heart for the game of politics. I will do as I promised but that will be an end to it. My brother is dead and I have our family fortunes to rebuild.'

Longley nodded. ‘I understand. Now, if I may request a personal favour of you?'

Daniel shrugged. ‘If it is within my power.'

‘I have letters for my family in Worcestershire. Would you undertake to deliver them safely into their hands?' When Daniel did not reply, he continued. ‘They are just family letters,' Longley said with a hollow, humourless laugh. ‘My wife has seen me but a very few times in the last ten years. You will find Lady Longley at the home of her brother, Sir Jonathan Thornton, at a house called Seven Ways near Kidderminster.'

Daniel nodded. ‘I remember Colonel Thornton.'

Longley looked at him and shook his head. ‘Worcester seems a lifetime ago. I see no trace of the boy I met that night.'

‘He died in Barbados,' Daniel pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘I lodge at the Laine Marchant.'

‘I will deliver my missives to you there.' Longley rose to face him, holding out his hand. ‘I wish you well, Lovell. Good evening to you.'

The men shook hands and Longley turned to leave. He took a few steps before turning around to face him. ‘And Lovell, if you do see my wife, tell her … tell her that I will make amends for these past long years.'

London
30 October 1659

A stench of animal and human waste and decomposing vegetable matter rose from the Thames and exuded in waves from the dark, narrow streets that led down to the dock. Standing at the rail of the ship, his hands gripping the weathered wood so hard that the knuckles showed white, Daniel breathed in the fetid London air as if it were the finest perfume he had ever smelled.

He had come home.

The rickety plank that served as a gangway had been run out and now rested on the dock, a frail link between the present and the past. Daniel picked up the box containing all his worldly possessions, heaved it onto his shoulder, and took the plank in two strides. Oblivious to the curious glances from his fellow passengers and the men working on the docks, he set down his box and went down on one knee, placing the palm of his right hand on the mired cobblestones. If he still believed in God he would have given a prayer of thankfulness, but God had deserted him on a battlefield outside Worcester.

He straightened and stood on the dockside looking around. He had never visited London in his youth, and after years away from England the hustle and bustle felt more intimidating than a Spanish warship. He asked a passer-by for directions to the Blue Boar, shouldered his box, and set off in the vague direction in which the man had indicated.

Above him the old, crooked houses leaned out over the street, making the narrow cobbled ways more like tunnels than thoroughfares. Shopkeepers shouted their wares and under his feet, excrement Daniel suspected to be both human and animal covered the cobbles in a noxious slime.

He rounded a corner and was brought up short by a gaggle of men and women crowded around an angry man. The man screamed abuse and obscenities at someone on the ground. Every word was accompanied by a vicious downward blow from the walking stick he carried.

Daniel pushed his way through the crowd and gave an involuntary hiss of disgust when he saw the object of the man's fury was a child, a thin, ragged urchin huddled in a foetal position with his hands over his head to prevent the rain of blows, while the crowd around cheered the aggressor on.

Daniel set down the box and stepped forward. With one swift movement he caught the man's arm as he raised it again.

‘Enough,' Daniel said.

The man looked at him in surprise. He seemed well-dressed and respectable, but his flabby face was suffused with purple and spittle had formed at the corners of his mouth.

‘Unhand me, sir,' he said.

‘What has this child done that you should abuse him in this fashion?'

‘He tried to steal my purse,' the man said. ‘When I've finished with him, I will be handing him over to the constable to be put in the stocks. Little thief.' The man tried to wrench his arm free from Daniel's iron grip. ‘You are hurting me, sir.'

‘I didn't do it.' The boy raised his head, his voice muffled by his tears. ‘I tried to stop him but he took to his ‘eels and I was left standing ‘ere.'

‘Do you have his purse?' Daniel enquired.

The boy rose to his knees and held out trembling hands. ‘Search me,' he said. ‘I don't have no purse. Not a farthin'.'

Daniel released the man's arm and placed himself between the infuriated citizen and the child who cowered behind him. ‘The boy has been punished enough. Go in peace and keep your purse more secure in future.'

The man rubbed the place where Daniel's fingers had dug into him. ‘This is none of your business,' he said. ‘Hand the boy over to me this instant.'

‘Go on your way,' Daniel's hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.

Uncertainty flickered in the man's eyes and he took a step back. ‘Would you draw your sword on me for the sake of a dirty piece of street refuse?' he demanded.

‘I'll not see a child beaten in this fashion, whether he is guilty or not. I wouldn't treat a dog in such a manner. On your way.'

The man squared his shoulders. ‘Very well. On your head be it, sir.' Retrieving his hat from a servant standing in the crowd, he stalked off his nose in the air, The gathered crowd dispersed, leaving Daniel with the child.

The boy scrambled over the filthy ground, wrapping his hands around Daniel's ankle. ‘Fank you, sir. Fank you … '

Daniel squatted down and disengaged the clinging hands. ‘Are you much hurt?'

The boy looked up. He sported a black eye and a swollen lip. Tears had tracked through the dirt on his face and his clothes hung in tatters.

‘I've ‘ad worse.' The boy rose to his feet, brushing off his filthy rags as if they were the finest velvet.

‘How old are you?' Daniel enquired.

The child shrugged. He was so ragged and undernourished he could have been any age from eight to fifteen. ‘I was born before they cut the ‘ead off the king,' he said helpfully.

That made him ten or older. Daniel considered him for a moment.

‘Perhaps you can help me. Do you know the way to the Blue Boar?'

Beneath the grime the child's eyes brightened. ‘I do, sir.'

‘Good, take me there and I will give you a coin.'

The urchin straightened, flinching as he flexed his shoulders. ‘Carry yer box, sir?'

‘No. I can manage that. What's your name, lad?'

‘Matt, sir.'

‘Do you have a last name?'

The boy shook his head. ‘Not that I knows of. Me ma had too many gentlemen callers to say rightly who me father was. They just calls me Matt.'

‘And your mother?'

‘Dead sir, died of lung fever last winter. It's just me.'

Daniel smiled. ‘And you earn your way with your quick fingers?'

Matt's smile faded. ‘I earn my living best way I can, sir, but I ain't no thief.'

Daniel gave the boy a sceptical glance, and a wide grin split the boy's face.

‘Not unless I can't ‘elp it,' he said. ‘But I didn't nick that cove's purse. It was me mate, Sam. He took off and left me to cop the blame.'

‘Not much of a mate, then.'

‘No,' Matt agreed with narrowed eyes and a tight mouth. ‘Ere we are. This ‘eres the Blue Boar, and a finer tavern you'll not find in London.'

He stood expectantly as Daniel fished out a coin, his eyes widening as Daniel flicked him a groat. Matt's grubby fingers closed over the coin and he looked up at Daniel with wide, bright eyes.

‘Thank you, sir … is there anything else I can do for ‘ee?'

‘Yes, you can go and get yourself a decent meal,' Daniel said, and turned to go into the inn, where the landlord waited for him.

‘You don't want to be bothering yourself with the likes of him,' the innkeeper said as he gestured for one of his own boys to come forward and take Daniel's box from him.

Daniel glanced backwards. Matt stood where he had left him, looking down at the coin in the palm of his hand. Seeing Daniel look his way, the boy gave a cheeky grin, tugged his greasy forelock, and scampered off. Daniel shook his head and turned back to the innkeeper.

‘A private room,' Daniel said.

‘The best I have, sir. This way … '

They passed a masked woman and two young children on the gallery. The woman, cloaked and clad in unrelieved black, had both children firmly by the hand. The younger child, a boy, looked up and gave Daniel a curious stare.

‘Good day to you, Mistress Fletcher,' the innkeeper greeted the woman in a cheery manner.

The woman glanced at the two men and Daniel had an impression of brown curls framing a small, heart-shaped face, although the fashionable black velvet mask concealed her features. He stood to one side to let her pass. The boy looked back, staring at Daniel, before the woman twitched at his hand and he hurried to keep pace with her.

‘Nice lady,' the innkeeper said as he unlocked a door that led off the gallery, ‘but those poor little mites lost their father a day or two ago.'

‘Lost?' Daniel raised an eyebrow.

‘Had his ‘ead lopped off on Tower Green. He were an Earl or some such, so it's the axe for him, not the rope like us common folk.'

Daniel stopped. ‘The name of the man?'

‘Elmhurst. Lord Elmhurst. Always stayed ‘ere when he came to London.'

‘What did he do?'

‘Traitor, they say. Traitor to what, I ask. These are strange times, my friend.'

Daniel glanced over the gallery in time to see the dark cloak of the woman disappear under the gateway.

‘Who is the woman?'

‘Some kin of the earl. Mistress Fletcher's her name. Brought the children down a month ago and took the best room in the house. Every day she took ‘em up to visit with their father.' The landlord's lips tightened. ‘Now ‘e's dead and I've not seen coin for bed and board this last week past. ‘Ere's the room. Hope it suits.'

Daniel agreed to take the room and as the door shut on the landlord, he laid his hat and gloves on the table and walked over to the window. He had deliberately asked for a room facing the street and he looked down into the bustling thoroughfare below as he undid the knot on his cloak.

A small figure huddled in the doorway of the shop across the road from the inn, skinny arms wrapped around bare knees. Daniel shook his head. Show a beaten pup some kindness and it would follow you to the ends of the world.

‘I'm not your saviour, lad,' he said aloud and straightened, craning his head to look down the street.

The woman and the two small children were walking back toward the inn. The elder child, a girl, dragged her feet as the woman pulled on her hand. The boy seemed content to bounce along beside his guardian, chattering away despite the lack of response from the woman. She walked with her slender shoulders bowed as if the very weight of the world rested on them.

The lure of treasure had been part of his life for the past five years and Daniel could not dismiss the thought that somewhere at Charvaley Castle there was such a hoard. What did Agnes Fletcher really know of Elmhurst's recent involvement in royalist plots? Did the key really lie with this woman?

Daniel considered her slight form, wondering what the velvet mask concealed. He imagined the Earl would not have chosen an ill-favoured wench to be his mistress. If indeed she had been his mistress. The thought intrigued him.

She stopped at a pie vendor and a few coins were exchanged for pies. Steam rose into the cold air from the warm offerings and the children looked up at her with wide, expectant eyes. They did not notice Matt, still crouched in the doorway, watching the transaction with a hungry look on his thin face.

Clutching their warm pastries, Agnes Fletcher and her two young charges hastened across the road and were swallowed up by the entrance to the inn.

Daniel walked back to the table, folding his black cloak neatly across the back of a chair. He yawned and glanced at the inviting bed. A few hours rest were called for after the miserable crossing from the continent. Even after five years aboard the French privateer he still suffered seasickness.

He pulled off his boots and coat and lay down, letting the well-stuffed mattress envelop him in goose down. With his hands behind his head he contemplated his next move. A little further investigation into the subject of Mistress Agnes Fletcher may be called for, he decided as his eyelids closed.

***

As she watched the two children tossing a leather ball to each other, Agnes pulled the hood of her cloak up in an attempt to break the cold wind that blew off the river. She was running out of ideas to occupy two very bored children while they waited on the faceless men in Whitehall deciding their fate. Without the daily routine of visiting their father, they spent the morning in lessons and in the afternoon braved the cold, cheerless streets.

How long will they keep us waiting
, she wondered.
The children need to be home among familiar faces and routines, not here in this dangerous, verminous city
.

Yet it had been three days since James's execution, and still she waited for permission to leave the city. What was there to decide? She was the children's aunt, there could be no question that she would be a suitable guardian. The longer the decision took, the more her hope evaporated, along with the contents of her purse.