Andrew Swanston - The King's Return

‘Anything more on the source of the ransom demand?’ asked Thomas.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, at least it won’t be needed now,’ said Charles cheerfully. Williamson scowled at him. ‘Has Mottershead told you everything, Joseph, or shall we offer our report?’

‘I don’t know if he’s told me everything because I don’t know what everything is. I’d better hear it from you after I’ve seen Madeleine.’ An exhausted Mary entered the room. ‘Would you take me to her now, Mary?’

They were down again within a few minutes. ‘She looks dreadful,’ said Joseph. ‘If there’s no improvement by tonight, I shall have to summon a physician, even though I have little time for them. Now tell me what happened and why you did not inform me of your intentions.’

Joseph sat in silence while they told him about Dartford and the marshes and about the cottages and the guards. He spoke only when Thomas described the man with half a nose and a lip sliced almost in half, who spoke in whispers and had escaped. ‘This man, is he English?’

‘He told us that he was half Dutch and had been wounded at Naseby.’

‘Could he have been mistaken for a foreigner?’

‘Yes. His voice was unusually harsh. He did not tell us from whom he took orders, only that they came in writing and were left at the Fox in Bishopsgate.’

‘Almost certainly a lie, but I’ll have it checked. He’s a formidable enemy if he got the better of Mottershead. Anything else?’

‘Madeleine may be able to tell us more when she is stronger,’ replied Thomas.

‘Then we must pray that she recovers quickly. For her sake and our own. In the meantime I shall send Mottershead back to Dartford, wounded or not. He will dispose of the bodies and search the house. Not that I expect him to find anything. I shall return later.’

When Joseph had left, Thomas went back up to Madeleine. For an hour he watched her sleeping, then returned to his room and took out the Dramatis Personae . It was time for a new cast.

After rewriting it, he had:

Plato: ‘Life must be lived as a play.’

The Post Office, the Murders and the Plot

Dramatis Personae

------------------------

Joseph Williamson: the king’s spymaster

Henry Bishop: suspicious spaniel and Postmaster General

Sir Samuel Morland: taciturn inventor, linguist and cryptographer

Lemuel Squire: spherical letter-opener and oenophile

Josiah Mottershead: Williamson’s man

Matthew Smith: murdered intelligencer

John Winter: murdered intelligencer

Henry Copestick: murdered Post Office man

Disfigured Dutchman: murderer

Aurum and Argentum: Morland, Bishop, Squire, others?

Alchemist: Dutch?

Madeleine Stewart: brave and beautiful cousin of Williamson. Very sick

Sir Montford Babb: murdered investor in AV. Connection unknown

Chandle Stoner: businessman and friend of the Carringtons. Unconnected

Thomas Hill: devoted admirer of Miss Stewart. Soon to exit the stage

That evening, after Charles had gone out to meet Stoner, Williamson called again. Thomas led him up the stairs to Madeleine’s room. Mary was sitting by the bed. She stood when they entered and kissed Joseph on the cheek. ‘Joseph, she is still very sick.’

He bent to touch her forehead. ‘That lump on her neck – are there others?’

‘I can find none.’

‘What does it signify?’

‘I do not know.’

‘I shall send for a physician.’

‘No, Joseph. No physicians, please. Thomas and I will nurse her. She is better off with us.’

Joseph looked doubtful. ‘One more day, then. You’ll call for me if there’s any change?’ He stooped to kiss Madeleine.

‘Be sure of it.’

At the door, Joseph peered at Thomas with his good eye and said, ‘I have told Mottershead that if such a thing happens again he will be out on his ear. Kindly do not lead him astray.’

‘I won’t. Has there been anything else?’

‘No. We got nothing from the Fox, not that I thought we would. Our enemies are clever. Each link in their chain operates independently, as you found out with the Dutchman. He was hired to murder Smith, Winter and Copestick, but did not know by whom. And the king is losing patience. If I don’t tell him exactly what this plot is and who the ringleaders are very soon, I am likely to find myself in the Tower.’

‘So what’s to be done?’

‘I shall call again tomorrow. If Madeleine is able to speak, I shall ask her some questions. She may know something.’

Thomas went back up to Madeleine, where he found Mary still sitting beside the bed. ‘Has she woken?’ he asked, stroking Madeleine’s hair.

‘She has briefly. I managed to get a little broth into her. As you can see, the abscess is still there, but no larger, and I can find no others. The fever is also much the same.’

‘Joseph will be back tomorrow. He wants to ask her some questions.’

Mary sighed. ‘I suppose I can hardly stop him. He is Madeleine’s cousin.’

Thomas had to get out of the house. Fear for Madeleine, Mary’s anger and, above all, fury at himself were eating away at his mind. The walls were his prison and he must escape them. Although it was past seven o’clock, he put on a coat and left.

From Piccadilly he walked down Haymarket to Charing Cross and past Whitehall Palace to Westminster Stairs. The fresh air revived him. At the top of the stairs he stood and gazed out over the river. Even at that hour it was teeming with boats – wherries, barges, painted galleys – as the watermen went about their work. On a warm May evening it was difficult to imagine the river frozen so hard that during the winter Frost Fairs games were played and carriages driven on the ice.

Two wherrymen were hurling good-natured abuse at each other. That was the way of wherrymen, as it was the way of the thousands of men and women doing their best to earn a living from the river. From Oxford to Tilbury, whole communities depended upon it. There might be longer, wider rivers than the Thames, but could there be one upon which a nation depended more for its prosperity? The river had carried Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. Had it not been for the weather and that fearless brigand Francis Drake, it might have carried Spaniards. Was it now to carry the Dutch and the French? God preserve England if it did.

For more than an hour Thomas stood and watched the river go by, his mind wandering from Madeleine to Aurum and Argentum, to Romsey and back to Madeleine. Then he walked briskly up King Street to Charing Cross and from there to Piccadilly. As he entered the house the clock struck nine. He could hear Charles and Mary talking in the sitting room, but passed the door quietly and went up the stairs.

Madeleine was asleep. He took her hand. It was cold and limp. If only he could make her well simply by thinking her well. If only he could banish the sickness by the force of his will.

If she recovered, would she still want him? Should he stay in London while she regained her strength in the hope that she would? Or should he go home? His work for Williamson was done and there were matters to deal with at the school – books to be purchased, a new teacher to be found, repairs to be made. Madeleine would need time to recover. She would need rest, not Thomas Hill. And there was Lucy, about whom he realized guiltily he had thought not at all since Madeleine had disappeared. It was clear. He should go home and take Lucy with him, just as he had planned to before Madeleine’s abduction.

Joseph arrived early the next morning. Madeleine was still asleep and Thomas was back at her bedside. He came quietly into the room, nodded to Thomas and bent to kiss her. Blunt, even charmless, he might be, thought Thomas, but of his cousin he is very fond.