Paul Lawrence - The Sweet Smell of Decay

So all the money I earn I spend and all I spend is covered by what I earn, which is a balance that keeps my soul sweet and heart content. And if I ever do decide to marry then it will be to a wealthy woman anyhow, for liberty carries a high price.

She made me some dinner that I ate in silence. I prayed that I had been wise in my treatment of Parsons, but I didn’t feel wise — I felt confused and lost. Were I to adopt the common view, then my new dead cousin was the victim of maleficium and Mary Bedford was the culprit. Whatever the truth of the matter — that wasn’t it. This was a complex challenge for which I would need a good night’s sleep. Later.

Hurrying through the wintry dusk, drawn forwards by a soft, warm light, I relished the safe haven of the Crowne. It is difficult for me to describe the sense of solace I find inside the walls of such great taverns. As I pass over the threshold it is as if all my troubles are taken away and hung on a peg. By the time I come to collect them again my soul is brighter and my heart sings a merry song. Also some of the warmest and softest women in London are to be found at the Crowne.

I had already arranged to meet William Hill there for no other motive than to drink and be merry. Yet this night I crossed the threshold with a fresh motive, for Hill possessed a sharp wit and I savoured the prospect of sharing my preoccupation with him, that he might hold forth his staff and put everything to right. He knew other people’s secrets.

Hill had been a pensioner at Cambridge at the same time that I was a sizar — I had waited on the wealthier students to earn my passage. Now he was a merchant, like his father before him. He had left the year before me to travel Europe at his father’s expense. I assume that the object of the trip was to build his own networks of colleagues and acquaintances, for that is how it seems to work in his line of business. He was still a good friend, of sorts, though the nature of his trade meant that there were always things that he did and people that he knew that he would tell me nothing of. Were I in a similar position then perhaps our relationship would have been more balanced. As it was there was nothing hidden in the yellowed parchments of the Tower that I would withhold from Hill other than from fear of boring him to death. So sometimes I wearied of his tales, the inevitable expression of regret that he could tell me no more. I think I was a little envious, but he was fun to be with, a bowl of sauce wrapped up in a thick layer of goose fat. While others walked wearily from pillar to post, Hill bounced.

Tonight, though, he sat in a corner by himself huddled over a mug of ale, a plate of bones at his elbow, miserable. He looked up at me and grunted as I approached, blinking with red eyes, his mouth curled in a surly snarl. Not the horny dog I knew so well. I asked what ailed him but he just muttered at me. I didn’t know whether to stay or go for I had never seen him cloaked in such a foul black mood before, but he kicked a chair aside for me to sit in. Before obliging I called for another jug of ale and two pipes. Taking one of the pipes he leant back and acknowledged me with a forced grin. I thought better of asking him again what troubled him, assuming it must be some deal gone wrong. Perhaps he had lost a cargo, or had a shipment impounded at the docks, or some such disaster. He pulled at the pipe then watched the exhaled smoke drift away into the yellow fog.

‘What’s news at the Tower?’

‘I no longer work at the Tower.’ Putting down my mug and taking my time I recounted the events of the day. I told him how Prynne had gleefully informed me that my father had already been in touch with him to request that I be permitted to resign. Before I could recant the request he had berated me for being ‘effeminate, whorish and abominable’ then commended me for my noble resolution that he hoped would be my salvation. My interview with Shrewsbury had been little better. He had bid me attend him at Whitehall, then took me for a ride in his yellow coach, berating me my wasteful life. It was he that told me where my cousin’s body lay, he that told me with great pompous majesty that he had deigned to support my efforts — again at my father’s request — to the extent that he had arranged for someone from the Mayor’s office to lend the butcher. Yet he also placed a sword at my throat and made me vow to tell no man of his involvement.

Hill listened with the face of a huge bull, big black eyes locked onto mine. As I spoke his brow slowly lowered and his jaw tightened, his china pipe waggling between his teeth. A little muscle twitched, just where his jaw met his neck. ‘A vow that you have already broken at least once today, then?’

A fair point, I reflected, though spoken strangely. His tone was unusually guarded this evening. I had been half hoping that he would pull a face, flick the stem of his pipe in my direction and announce contemptuously that everyone in London knew who had killed Anne Giles. ‘It’s only you I’ve told.’

Hill shook his head slowly. ‘Shrewsbury is a good patron to have, Lytle. You are fortunate to have a friend like him. If your loose lips land him in trouble with the Lord Chief Justice, then he will cut off your balls and sew them into your cheeks.’

‘Aye,’ I nodded. My mouth felt uncomfortably dry, so I wet it. He kept staring at me with his black beady eyes. ‘What do you know of Shrewsbury?’ I asked him.

‘He’s your patron, not mine.’

‘It was my father that knew him. He used to come into the shop and smoke his tobacco during Cromwell’s reign. He gave me my post at the Tower in exchange for my father’s kindnesses, I suppose. Which was strange enough.’ I shook my head. ‘Why should he concern himself with my father’s affairs now that he is rich and famous?’

Shrugging and looking away at last, Hill blew out his cheeks so his head looked like that of a pig. ‘Shrewsbury sits on the Privy Council, Harry. He was loyal to Charles Stuart and diverted funds to his war on Scotland, and he helped Monck, indeed was a member of the Sealed Knot, those that planned the Restoration while Cromwell was still Lord Protector. Shrewsbury was one of those that went to Holland to bring Charles back.’

‘Then I don’t understand why he gives off such an air of things politick. I barely understand what he says half the time. If he’s so close to the King, I would expect him to be sitting pretty at the Palace, wouldn’t you?’ I spoke quietly, despite the covering din.

Hill shifted his chair awkwardly so that his mouth was close to my ear. ‘Aye, well you are artless of the workings of the Court. There is room for the whole of London in all the secret passages that worm their way between the Palace walls. Some of them are not so secret neither. I myself have been down the one between the King’s quarters and Lord Arlington’s rooms. The whole of London knows about the passage from the King’s bedroom to the quarters of the maids of honour, it is a sign of the way things are down at Whitehall. Once you find a secret passage then it is no longer a secret, it loses its worth, but when a spy is found he can be replaced, and Whitehall swarms with them. I would wager that Charles sets up his games just to keep the Court busy.’

‘The King shows no gratitude to those that put him where he is?’

He turned away to drink from his mug. ‘I didn’t say that. The King is mindful of the fate that became his father. Parliament cut off his head because they said he was waging war upon his own people and soliciting support from France. Charles knows what happens when a king lifts his chin too high. Many complain that we wage war with the Dutch when Holland resists popery with such resolve, and say he is plotting with the Spanish, who are the natural harbingers of the papists. Others say that the war with Holland is a wall of smoke that causes the French and Spanish to be lax. None really know his intentions, for he confides in none, or rather confides in all, but confides particularly with each. He knows that the mood of the people may not be counted on to be steadfast, so he pleases them and their natural inclination to dance, play music and drink, whilst befuddling the Court with puffs of smoke and tastes of honey.’