Paul Lawrence - Hearts of Darkness

They proceeded back down the same streets we had walked earlier this morning. When Withypoll turned onto Friday Street, I hurried my pace, alarmed they ventured so close to my neighbourhood.

Two men loitered upon the corner, neither gentlemen nor vagabonds, just standing there with no obvious intent. The soldiers drew their swords as they turned the corner, chasing behind him. One ran awkwardly, boots too large for his feet. They jogged down the middle of Friday Street, turned left on Watling Street, and into Bread Street, my street.

When a neighbour called my name, I held a finger to my lips, afore I stopped still, not twenty paces from my own house. Withypoll pounded my front door with gloved fist. Jane would be gone already, surely?

‘What have you done, Harry?’ asked a stout fellow with black bristle covering his face and ears, brow lowered in expression of intense curiosity. ‘What have you done?’ He glanced up at me, half afraid, half amused. ‘You robbed the crown jewels?’

‘Did you see Jane leave?’ I whispered, hoarse.

He stared down at the cobbles and scratched his head.

Withypoll kicked the door, without success. Then he gestured to one of the soldiers and they kicked together, cracking my door down the middle at third attempt. All five of them stormed into my house. I heard crashing, loud noises, the sound of breaking furniture.

Dowling laid a hand upon my shoulder. ‘We must go.’

I punched his arm. ‘What if Jane is in there?’

‘Lucy came hours ago,’ Dowling replied, staring ahead.

Withypoll emerged, eyes blazing, cursing loud enough for all of London to hear. He stamped his foot on the ground and kicked the wall of my house. The soldiers appeared behind him, like frightened sheep, heads bowed.

I turned to Clinton, my neighbour. ‘William, ask them why they’ve come,’ I whispered. ‘Seem willing. If they ask you where I am, tell them you heard I was gone to Colchester. Look simple and they’ll believe you.’

‘Right enough,’ he nodded seriously and set off. I prayed he wouldn’t look back for encouragement.

He approached the smallest of the soldiers, and tapped him on the shoulder. He exchanged a few words, then returned towards us, Withypoll’s eyes fixed upon his back. I sunk into the doorway, Dowling following my lead.

Clinton winked as he passed, shuffling at his normal pace. Withypoll watched him disappear over the hill before sighing, hands on hips. He spoke sharply to the soldier closest to him and followed after Clinton, towards us. I slipped my hand behind my back and turned the handle of the door behind. Mercifully it opened, and we slipped quickly into the house, closing the door behind us.

‘Hello, Harry,’ a familiar voice sang out. Clinton’s wife, same shape

and size as he, but with more hair upon her rounded head. ‘You look a mess.’

I surveyed my clothes, stained, torn and misshapen. ‘I haven’t been home for a while.’

‘Why not?’ she exclaimed, too loud for my liking. ‘Jane will mend those breeches and wash those clothes.’ She squinted. ‘I don’t think she’d be pleased to see you out in such a state.’

I edged to the window and peered onto the street. Withypoll and the soldiers marched by, the soldiers with shoulders slumped, Withypoll strident and furious.

‘You’re right,’ I replied. ‘I’ll go home now.’ I watched Withypoll’s party reach Watling Street where they turned right. We would have to follow. ‘Thank you, Mrs Clinton,’ I said, opening the door to the street.

Half the neighbourhood was out, watching the soldiers, exchanging glorious suppositions. No sooner did my feet touch the cobbles than I was surrounded by inquisitive do-gooders, offering kind words with macabre expression, all wanting to know why King’s soldiers broke down my door. I behaved as if innocent, moving slow, holding my face in my hands, watching for Clinton. He returned fast, trotting down the road, eager. I grabbed his collar and pulled him close.

‘What did they say?’ I whispered.

‘They said they were looking for you,’ he replied, excited. ‘Why would they be looking for you?’

I gripped his jacket harder. ‘What did you tell them?’

He opened his mouth wide, revealing blackened gums and green-furred tongue. ‘I told them you eloped with Jane!’ He laughed loud until he’d had enough, then tried to catch his breath, choking.

I watched, stony-faced.

‘I told them you were gone to Colchester,’ he gasped, catching my eye. ‘Like you said.’

I attempted a smile. ‘Thanks, Bill.’

Dowling elbowed me in the chest. ‘We must go.’ The two men that watched us on Cheapside watched us again, standing beneath the shadow of St Mildred’s. They caught our eye and slipped away, in the same direction as Withypoll.

‘God’s hooks!’ I exclaimed. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Not much point in following,’ Dowling replied, ‘since he will soon be following us. We would go round in circles. We must make haste. He doesn’t know where Josselin is, else he would not be looking for us, and we must be careful not to lead him in that direction.’

So we headed south, down to Thames Street, where the candlemakers clustered together in their cramped yards melting tallow, the great stink carried high into the sky and towards the Fleet by the wind blowing off the river.

‘We should hide a while,’ said Dowling, looking this way and that, as if conscious of his bulk. ‘Until Withypoll gives up on us.’

‘Not by the water,’ I replied. ‘If they have soldiers at the gate they must have soldiers at the docks. In a tavern, perhaps.’

Dowling cast me a sideways glance. ‘Or a church.’

‘What if Josselin goes to meet us,’ I exclaimed. ‘I say we go to Red Rose Lane while Withypoll sniffs round here.’

Dowling grimaced.

‘We have been unlucky,’ I insisted. ‘Most spies will be searching for Josselin, not us.’ I considered my clothes again. ‘I am barely recognisable. Withypoll must have posted just a few spies around our houses to look out for us. Elsewhere we will be safer.’

Dowling stopped and stared, like he saw me for the first time. ‘The

spies are not looking out for me or you, but both of us together. A big, tall man with white hair, next to a short fellow with dark hair and stubble on his face.’

‘Should we split up?’ I said, feeling lonely already.

‘We must,’ said Dowling. ‘You, as you say, are already dishevelled. No longer a strange fop, but more discreet. No man could pick you out less he knew you intimately.’

‘A fop?’ I exclaimed. To a bloodied ogre like Dowling, any man who washed might be called a fop. I decided to consider it a compliment. ‘I will go find Josselin,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Same,’ Dowling replied, ‘but not with you. I will follow and try to keep you in sight. If we lose each other I’ll meet you again at St Katharine Cree, at three.’

‘Very well.’ I felt better.

I set off, wondering how it was I led. Though I avoided the main thoroughfares, we kept coming across pockets of soldiers, especially close to the bridge. The crowd spilt back from the mouth of the bridge west and east, along Thames Street and up Fish Street Hill.

‘What’s news?’ I asked a ruddy-faced man standing on tiptoe.

‘They’ve closed the bridge,’ he snapped, hopping up and down, neck craned. ‘I have to get back to Bankside, my wife is ill.’ He clasped his hand upon his forehead in dismay. ‘They say there are three Dutch spies in the City.’ He breathed deep. ‘I pray they find them soon and string them up by the neck. I have to get home.’

His words knifed me in the belly, though they came as no surprise. So now I was a Dutch spy. How quickly that happened, I reflected, bile rising in my throat, feeling the same anger and indignation I imagined Josselin experienced. I rubbed my sweaty palms upon the