The Butcher of Smithfield (43 page)

‘What happened?’ he asked a disreputable-looking man with a patch over one eye.

‘A death in the costermongery. Or maybe the print-shop. I cannot tell from here.’

‘Someone else has died of cucumbers?’ asked Chaloner uneasily.

But the man shrugged as he slunk away, grumbling
that there was nothing to be seen and that he was wasting his time.

Chaloner looked for someone else to question, and saw a number of familiar faces among the crowd. L’Estrange was grinning
contentedly, and Chaloner supposed his good humour derived from the fact that he had enjoyed his morning with Dorcus. Joanna
and Brome were with him, both looking thoroughly wet and miserable. Not far away, Leybourn was talking to the influential
booksellers, Nott and Allestry. Mary kept tugging his arm to make him leave, but he had the animated expression on his face
that said he was discussing mathematics, and all the tugging in the world would not budge him. Not far away, Muddiman was
conversing with a pair of drovers, and Chaloner eased closer in an attempt to eavesdrop. What he learned made him smile, because
it answered at least one mystery.

The rain came down harder still, driving some of the onlookers away. L’Estrange was among them. Chaloner watched him shoulder
his way through the gathering, not caring who he shoved, and anyone who objected could expect to be called ‘damned phanatique’.
Unfortunately, Leybourn was in one of his feisty moods, and took exception to the remark. Chaloner hurried forward when L’Estrange’s
sword came out of its scabbard. Leybourn struggled to draw his own but, not for the first time, disuse and poor maintenance
caused it to stick. Then it came free in a rush, almost depriving Nott of his peculiar hair-bun.

‘Come on, then,’ the surveyor yelled, holding the weapon like an axe. Immediately, people began to form a circle around the
combatants. ‘Fight an honest bookseller, and let us see who God favours.’

There was a cheer from the onlookers, but L’Estrange responded by performing several fancy swishes that showed his superior
training, and the applause faltered. Leybourn was about to be skewered. Chaloner looked around for Mary, expecting her to
urge him to walk away from a confrontation he could not win, but she remained suspiciously silent.

‘I shall defend myself in the event of an attack,’ announced L’Estrange loftily, eyeing Leybourn with disdain when he attempted
to duplicate the display and ended up dropping his blade. ‘But I decline to debase myself by fooling about with amateurs.
Is that your wife, Leybourn? She is a pretty lady.’

Leybourn was confused by the compliment. He bent to retrieve his weapon. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘Well, if she is made a widow out of this, you can trust me to comfort her in her sorrows,’ said L’Estrange, winking at her.
Mary smiled coquettishly.

‘Tell him where to go, Mary,’ ordered Leybourn icily. There was a pause. ‘Mary?’

‘Put your blade in his gizzard, Leybourn,’ suggested Nott, jumping back when the surveyor made another of his undisciplined
swings. ‘God knows, he deserves it.’

‘No,’ said Chaloner, stepping forward to grab the surveyor’s shoulder. ‘Duelling is illegal.’

‘Heyden is right,’ said Brome, elbowing his way through the throng to join them. Joanna was at his heels, eyes wide with alarm.
‘L’Estrange is an excellent swordsman, and you will certainly lose this encounter. Walk away while you are still in one piece.’

‘You were insulted,’ whispered Mary in Leybourn’s other ear. ‘Will you meekly accept it?’

Chaloner waited for Leybourn to realise she was
encouraging him to enjoin a brawl that would see him killed, but he seemed to have lost his senses as well as his heart. He
shoved the spy behind him and held his rapier in a grip that would see him disarmed in the first riposte. Brome’s expression
was one of horror, but Joanna darted past him and punched L’Estrange in the chest.

‘Leave him alone, you horrible man!’ she cried. The editor regarded her in astonishment, which turned to rage when people
began to laugh. Joanna’s bravado began to dissolve. ‘I am not saying you are horrible all the time, but you are horrible when
you challenge weaker men … I mean, you are …’

Abruptly, she turned and fled, scuttling behind her husband. Several onlookers snickered, but Chaloner thought she had at
least tried to conquer her fear and make a stand to help a friend, and he respected her for it.

‘You are a phanatique, Leybourn,’ declared L’Estrange, turning back to his prey. ‘Why else would you be fined for the sale
of unlicensed books?’

If L’Estrange had expected his observation to earn him the crowd’s support, he had miscalculated badly. There were booksellers
and printers among them, and their sympathies were clearly not with the Government’s official censor. Leybourn found himself
with growing support and, with alarm, Chaloner saw him draw strength from it.

‘Run him through, Leybourn,’ yelled Nott to accompanying cheers. ‘Williamson will no doubt appoint another cur to do his bidding,
but he cannot be as bad as this mongrel.’

‘Please, Will,’ said Chaloner quietly. ‘Do not let them—’

‘Ignore Heyden,’ ordered Mary. ‘He is a coward, afraid to fight for what is right.
You
are brave.’

Chaloner could easily have disarmed his friend, but he did not want to humiliate him by exposing his ineptitude. And he certainly
did not want anyone thinking L’Estrange had won the encounter.

‘Walk away, Will,’ he urged. ‘You cannot afford to let L’Estrange kill you. You have a wife to consider. What would Mary do
without you?’

Mary’s expression hardened. ‘Actually, I would rather have a man who—’

‘He is right, William,’ called Joanna from behind Brome. ‘Think of Mary, and put up your sword.’

Mary was furious when Leybourn’s blade began to droop, but her rage was the cold kind, and she kept her temper admirably.
‘Perhaps you should fight Heyden instead, sir,’ she said prettily to L’Estrange. ‘William is no phanatique, but Heyden is.’

L’Estrange moved his head in a way that made his earrings sparkle, while his teeth flashed in an appreciative leer as he looked
her up and down; Chaloner thought he looked like the Devil. ‘Heyden is a phanatique, is he? Would you care to tell me how
you come by such information, dear lady?’

She smiled back, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘He was in the New Model Army, fighting Royalists – such as yourself – during the
civil wars. And more recently, he was spying in Spain and Portugal.’

L’Estrange regarded Chaloner appraisingly. ‘I thought you had the look of a Roundhead about you. It is all to do with the
boots. Was it you who made the Walbrook burst its banks?’

‘He is
not
a phanatique,’ shouted Joanna defiantly.
When L’Estrange whipped around to glare at her again, she managed to hold her ground, although her voice trembled as she spoke.
‘And no one made the Walbrook flood. It is just something that happens when there is a lot of rain.’

‘We should be about our work,’ said Brome, boldly grabbing L’Estrange’s arm in an attempt to pull him away. ‘We have a lot
to do, if Monday’s
Intelligencer
is to be ready in time.’

‘True,’ agreed L’Estrange, sheathing his sword with a flourish. ‘My time is too valuable to waste on skirmishing with old
Roundheads. I can harm their cause much more deeply with my pen than a sword, anyway.’

Seeing the situation defused, Allestry tried to seize Leybourn’s weapon, although Nott looked disappointed the fuss was over.
When Chaloner saw Mrs Nott nearby, eyes fixed longingly on L’Estrange, he understood exactly why the bookseller had wanted
a brawl. Predictably, Mary made no attempt to help Allestry; her attention was gripped by the smouldering invitations L’Estrange
was sending with his eyes. Chaloner sincerely hoped Leybourn would not notice, or no one would be able to disarm him and there
would be blood spilled for certain. He turned to find Joanna at his side.

‘I see a solution,’ she said. Her face was pale, and Chaloner suspected the set-to had taken a heavy toll on the timid rabbit.
‘We shall arrange for L’Estrange to entice Mary away from William, and
that
is how we shall save him. I cannot think of a more deserving candidate for her affections. Can you?’

Chaloner had spotted Kirby, Treen and Ireton at the fringes of the dissipating crowd, and did not want a
confrontation with them, especially in Smithfield, where they had access to reinforcements. He tried to take refuge in the
costermongery, but it was still closed, and a notice on the door said it had suffered a flood, but would be back in business
the following day. Inside, Yeo laboured furiously with a mop. Chaloner stepped into a butcher’s shop instead, a bloody little
emporium of glistening entrails, smelly meat and vats of grease. He was not alone for long, because Joanna and Brome followed
him, having abandoned L’Estrange to the various Angels who clustered around him. Mrs Nott was among them.

‘Why are you hiding?’ asked Brome. ‘L’Estrange will not fight you now, not while he has all those woman fussing over him.’

‘Actually, I am hiding from Hectors. I have aggravated rather too many of them.’

Brome was appalled. ‘That was rash! They are not just louts, you know – most are skilled fighters, and not all of them are
stupid. And I hate to sound selfish, but we enjoyed your company the other day, and were hoping you might dine with us again.’

Joanna gazed at Chaloner with her huge brown eyes. ‘I hope you have not done anything to annoy Crisp; his Hectors are one
thing, but he is another entirely. I would not like you on the wrong side of the Butcher.’ She shuddered involuntarily.

‘I doubt I am important enough to attract his attention,’ replied Chaloner.

‘Do you think Crisp was responsible for attracting that crowd?’ asked Brome of Joanna. ‘I saw him when we first arrived, but
now he is gone. Do you think he dispensed one of his “lessons”? Perhaps on a shopkeeper who declined to pay the safety tax?’

Joanna shuddered again. ‘Lord! I knew we should have refused when L’Estrange suggested we come here to talk to Hodgkinson.
I have never liked Smithfield, and it is a dreadful place now Crisp has accrued all that power. Perhaps we should all go home,
before anything else nasty happens.’

‘We had a crisis with the newsbooks,’ Brome explained to Chaloner. ‘The Thames Street print-house is knee-deep in water, so
Hodgkinson cannot produce Monday’s
Intelligencer
there. And this morning, blocked gutters flooded his Smithfield print-house, too. The situation was looking bleak, and we
have all been sitting in St Bartholomew the Less, discussing solutions.’

‘Fortunately, Hodgkinson’s nephew has offered to print it instead, which is a relief,’ said Joanna. ‘We were just leaving,
when L’Estrange saw the crowd and decided to investigate. He was hoping it might be a newsworthy incident, because we are
short of material for the last page.’

They talked until Joanna said they should be getting back to the bookshop. Chaloner was sorry, because spending time in their
company was infinitely more preferable to the other grim matters that beckoned to him that day. He waited until they had gone,
then left the butcher’s stall, pulling up his hood against the rain. Within moments, he realised that Brome and Joanna were
being followed. It was by Muddiman, so he moved quickly to intercept the man.

The newsmonger did not seem at all concerned that he had just been caught doing something rather insalubrious. ‘There is some
sort of problem at the newsbook office,’ he said breezily. ‘So I have been spying on Brome in an attempt to find out what
it is. Of course, we have
a bit of a hiccup ourselves, thanks to you preventing Dury from reading those parliamentary summaries.’

‘My apologies,’ replied Chaloner. ‘But it cannot be the first time your plans have been foiled. I do not imagine L’Estrange
jumps into bed with someone else’s wife every Saturday.’

‘Well, you would be wrong, because he does. I suspect he will have Leybourn’s before the day is out, too, despite the fact
that he has already enjoyed Dorcus and her maid. He made a play for my wife once. He asked her to proofread the newsbooks,
if you can credit his audacity. But he left disappointed, because she rejected his offer of work
and
his affections.’

So, Leybourn was not the only man to be blind in affairs of the heart, thought Chaloner. ‘He does seem unstoppable where women
are concerned. I overheard what you said to those drovers earlier, by the way. You have started a rumour that L’Estrange is
responsible for the Walbrook flood.’

Muddiman’s laugh was unpleasant. ‘We shall see how he likes being regarded as a phanatique.’

‘This is not the first time you have used your skill as a newsmonger – a gossip, in essence – to teach someone a lesson, is
it?’ said Chaloner, giving voice to the conclusions he had drawn before Leybourn’s predicament had claimed his attention.
‘You invented tales about Newburne, too.’

Muddiman laughed again, and clapped his hands. ‘Extraordinary though it may seem, you are the first to guess that was me.
Even Dury has not caught on. Arise, Tom Newburne! What
does
it mean? Does
anyone
know? Everyone thinks he does, but ask a dozen Londoners and they will all tell you different things. I amused myself by
setting whispers and watching them ignite. Newburne was appalled, because it made him visible when he wanted anonymity. No
defrauder wants to be famous.’

‘You told me the phrase meant he was Catholic. Dury had a lewd interpretation. Hodgkinson thinks Newburne rose from the dead.
Leybourn said it describes men who drink too much and miss church. L’Estrange claims it means a rapid rise to power. Bulteel
believes it refers to promotion in the face of brazen dishonesty. The Earl of Clarendon uses it as a curse—’

‘But my favourite is the one I told Newburne’s wife – that business about knighting people with a wooden sword. He did nothing
of the sort, of course.’

‘You adapted the story to suit the recipient, playing on their superstitions, interests, fears and hopes. And you did it well,
especially with Hodgkinson. The man actually witnessed Newburne’s encounter with Annie Petwer, yet you managed to make him
think he had seen something completely different.’