Susanna Gregory: The Butcher Of Smithfield

Dawn had broken, and people were walking, riding or being driven to church. Chaloner supposed he had better join them, not because he had any burning desire for religion, but because he did not want to draw attention to himself with unorthodox behaviour. After a decade of Puritan rule, the newly reinstated bishops were eager to assert the authority of the traditional Church, and anyone not attending the Sunday services laid himself open to accusations of nonconformism. Like most spies, Chaloner tried to keep a low profile, and aimed to do all that was expected of him in the interests of maintaining anonymity.

The travelling clothes he had been wearing for the last three weeks were tar-stained and stiff with sea-salt, so he knelt by the chest at the end of the bed and rummaged about for something clean. He was horrified to discover that moths and mice had been there before him, and that what had been a respectable wardrobe was now a mess of holes and shreds. It was not that he particularly enjoyed donning splendid costumes, but his work as an intelligence officer meant that he was required to dress to a certain standard in order to gain access to the places where he needed to be. If he went to the Palace of White Hall — where the King lived and his ministers had their offices — clad in rags, the guards would refuse to let him in.

Eventually, he found a blue long-coat with silver buttons, knee-length breeches and a laced shirt that had somehow escaped the creatures’ ravages. ‘Lacing’ was a recent — and to his mind foppish — fashion, and he disliked the sensation of extraneous material flapping around his wrists and neck, but at least it provided convenient hiding places for the various weapons he always carried. Over the coat went the sash that held his sword; no gentlemen ever left home without a sword. His hat was black with a wide brim and a conical dome, and looked unremarkable. However, it had been given to him by a lady he had befriended in Spain, and its crown had been cleverly reinforced with a skin of steel. In a profession where sly blows to the head were not uncommon, he felt it was sure to prove useful.

He stumbled over a warped floorboard as he headed for the door, and a quick glance around the rented rooms he called home — an attic chamber containing a bed, two chairs, a chest and a table, and an adjoining pantry-cum-storeroom — told him that the subsidence he had first noticed at Christmas had grown a lot more marked during the four months he had been away. A fire in the house next door was to blame, and he was surprised the city authorities had not ordered his building to be demolished, too. The roof leaked, his windows no longer closed, and there was a distinct list to his floor. He only hoped that if — when — it did collapse, he would not be in it.

He walked swiftly down the stairs to the ground floor, the cat at his heels. He did not tiptoe deliberately, but stealth was second nature to a spy, and his sudden, soundless appearance startled his landlord, Daniel Ellis. Ellis was standing in front of a tin mirror, trying to see whether his wig was on straight in the dim light of the hall.

‘Lord!’ Ellis exclaimed, hand to his heart. ‘I did not hear you coming. I must be growing deaf.’

Ellis had been genuinely pleased to see his tenant return the previous evening. The speed of Chaloner’s departure — which had barely left him time to pack a bag; he had actually missed the ship he had been ordered to catch, and had been obliged to pay a riverman to row after it — had left Ellis with the impression that Chaloner might not come back. And there had been rent owing.

Chaloner gesticulated upwards. ‘Did you know the ceiling in my room-’

‘There is nothing wrong with my house,’ interrupted Ellis, in a way that told Chaloner he was probably not the first to complain. ‘Rats have a penchant for wood, as I have told you before, and they always gnaw beams when folk leave their rooms unoccupied for long periods of time. Of course, now you have a cat, rodents will no longer be a problem.’

Chaloner could have argued, but the chambers suited him well for a number of reasons. First, the subsidence had allowed him to negotiate a low rent, which was important to a man whose employer sometimes forgot to pay him. Secondly, Fetter Lane was a reasonably affluent street and its householders kept it lit at night — a spy always liked to be able to see what was happening outside his home. And finally, it was convenient for White Hall, where his master, the Earl of Clarendon worked.

‘Some letters came when you were gone,’ said Ellis, retrieving a bundle of missives from the chest under the mirror. ‘I was going to give them to your next of kin.’

‘You thought I was dead?’

Ellis became a little defensive. ‘It was not an unreasonable assumption — you left very abruptly, and then there was no news of you for months. I heard you playing your viol last night, by the way. At least the rats did not eat that.’

Chaloner would not have been pleased if they had. Playing the bass viol, or viola de gamba, was the thing he had missed above all else during his time away. Music soothed him and cleared his mind when he needed to concentrate, and although Isabella — the lady who had provided him with the hat and other comforts in Portugal — had arranged for him to borrow an instrument, it was not the same as playing his own. He took the letters from Ellis as his landlord locked the front door behind them.

There were five messages, which included three from his family in Buckinghamshire. He opened these first and scanned them quickly, afraid, as always, that a missive from home might carry bad news. All was well, though, and his brother was only demanding to know why he had not written. The fourth note was from his friend, the surveyor-mathematician William Leybourn, inviting him to dine with him and the woman he intended to marry. A date of the twentieth of July was scrawled at the bottom, and Chaloner wondered whether he might find Leybourn wed when he went to visit. He hoped so: Leybourn was always whining about not having a wife.

The fifth and last had been written just two days before, and was from a musician called Thomas Maylord. Maylord had been a close friend of Chaloner’s father, and had played for Oliver Cromwell’s court; when the Commonwealth had collapsed and King Charles II had reclaimed his throne three years before, Maylord had somehow managed to persuade the Royalists to keep him on. The letter was brief, and begged the spy for a meeting at his earliest convenience. The tone was curt, almost frightened, and very unlike the amiable violist. It was unsettling, and Chaloner supposed he had better find out what was distressing the old man as soon as he could.

St Dunstan-in-the-West was a large, stalwart church with a big square tower and a walled graveyard that jutted out into Fleet Street — much to the annoyance of carters and hackney-drivers, who tended to collide with it in foggy weather. It was full that morning, as people crowded inside to hear Rector Thompson preach a sermon about original sin. It was probably an erudite and well-argued discourse, but Thompson mumbled and there were so many babies and small children screaming that very little of his homily could be heard. Chaloner leaned against a pillar, folded his arms and thought that obligatory appearances at Sunday services was one aspect of home he had not missed at all.

Also bored, Ellis began to tell Chaloner about the foul weather that had beset the city while the spy had been away. Chaloner glanced around and saw the landlord was not the only one to be talking while Thompson pontificated in his pulpit. Behind them, two merchants discussed the imminent arrival of a consignment of French wine, while the man in front had his arms around two women, and was enjoying a conversation that was bawdy and far from private.