Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

“How are you feeling, dear Tom?” she asked, using her fond name for me.

“Better, I think.”

“You have had an ague. And have been in a fever now for almost three weeks.”

“So long as that?” I heard myself croak.

“But for my uncle’s remedies, you were fit to have died,” she explained. “For it was he who effected your cure. Soon after Mister Woston, our coachman, brought you to Jermyn Street, my uncle went to an apothecary in Soho to fetch Jesuit’s bark, and also some dried meadowsweet, which he then ground to a powder in a pestle, for he had read that these sometimes served as an ague remedy. And so it has proved, for you are restored to us.”

She mopped my brow with a damp cloth, and then helped me to drink some beer. I tried to sit up, but found I could not.

“You must stay still, for you are very weak, Tom. You must rely on me and Mrs. Rogers as if we were your own hands.”

“I cannot allow it, Miss Barton,” I protested. “It is not proper that you should look after me.”

“Tom,” she laughed, “don’t take on so. I am a woman who has brothers. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

It was some time before my condition improved enough to take proper cognisance of what had happened to me. By which time it was Lady Day. But Newton would not hear of my coming back to his service until I was fully recovered. Nor would he answer any of my enquiries relating to the investigations we had been working on. Instead he brought a piece of blackboard to my room which he did set upon a painter’s easel and, with the aid of some chalk, would, upon occasion, attempt to explain his system of fluxions to me. He meant well, of course; and yet I had not the brain for it, and these lectures in mathematics merely served to increase my resolve soon to be well again despite the fact that with Miss Barton nursing me I had good reason to lie abed thinking myself to be a man much blessed by being ill. For she baptised me with her love, and resurrected me with her tender care. When I was feverish, she mopped my brow. There were days when I lay awake and just looked at her for a whole afternoon. Other days I remember not at all. I have not the words to describe my love for her. How is love described? I am no Shakespeare. No Marvell. No Donne. When I was too weak to feed myself, she fed me. And always she read to me: Milton, Dryden, Marvell, Montaigne, and Aphra Behn, of whose work she was especially fond. Oroonoko was her favourite — although I myself did think the end much too gruesome. That book contains the history of a slave, and ’tis no exaggeration to say that by the time I was strong enough to return to the Mint, I was hers.

It was the eighth day of April, a Thursday, when I went back to work. I do remember that, and easily enough, for I could not have forgotten that milord Montagu was become the Earl of Halifax, and had replaced milord Godolphin as Lord Treasurer. And it was several days after before the business of the Mint permitted me the opportunity to enquire of Newton what had become of our investigation into the murders of Daniel Mercer and Mister Kennedy, for we had not spoken of these matters at all while I had been ill.

“As to the cipher,” said Newton, “I confess I have had no success with it, and it has become clear to me that more messages would be required in order to fathom the numerical structure that is its foundation. Mister Berningham died. Despite the ministrations of that prison drab, he succumbed to the poison he had been given. Very likely the girl did not do exactly as I told her. Doubtless she thought it madness to feed a man pieces of charcoal. And yet it might have cured him.

“I have had Mister Humphrey Hall keep a close eye on Count Gaetano and Doctor Love with very little to report except that Hooke continues to make himself their creature; and I would almost be unhappy if we were to discover some evidence of their having murdered Kennedy and Mercer before they have had a chance to murder Hooke, or, at the very least, his reputation.

“As to Sergeant Rohan and Major Mornay, I had both of them followed by two of our agents. It seems that like the Sergeant, the Major is also a Huguenot, as are several others in the Tower, both in the Mint and in the Ordnance. Naturally I was already aware of John Fauquier, the Deputy Master of the Mint, was also a Huguenot. But I did not know there were so many others.”

“It is said,” I remarked, “that the Huguenots are so numerous that there are as many in London as there are Roman Catholics. I have heard as many as fifty thousand.”

“The centre of their community is the Church of the Refuge in Threadneedle Street,” said Newton. “Some attend the Austin Friars Chapel in the City. Others the French Conformist Church of the Savoy in Westminster. But all the Huguenots from this Tower, whether they are Mint or Ordnance, attend Threadneedle Street. I myself went to a service at the French church of La Patente in Spitalfields where I found much to admire, since many of these Huguenots do embrace anti-Trinitarian views which are familiar to me. And yet they are most secretive. I was required to state my belief that Christ was a mere man, though without sin, before they would permit me to remain during their worship, for they are very fearful of spies. And not without good reason, I think. I have heard it said often enough that they do harbour secret Papists in their midst. My own agents say the same, but that is based on nothing more substantial than their own ignorant fancy, for our spies think all Frenchmen are, when weighed in the balance, found wanting.”

“That was also my own opinion,” I told him. “Certainly I know that there were a great many Huguenots who fought for King William at the Battle of the Boyne, including General Ruvigny himself. But I confess I have little apprehension of the true character of their persecutions. And why so many of them are here at all.”

“But you must have heard of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew,” protested Newton.

“I have heard of it,” I said. “But I am unable to describe what happened.”

Newton shook his head. “I would have thought the circumstances of the massacre were familiar to Protestants everywhere. What history are they teaching young people these days?” He sighed. “Well then, let me enlighten you. On the night of August the twenty-fourth, 1572, a large number of Protestants were in Paris to see the Huguenot Henry of Navarre, the future French King and grandfather of the present French King, Lewis, married to Marguerite, who was a member of the ruling French Catholic family of Valois. The treacherous Valois family saw opportunity to extirpate Protestantism from France, and took it. Ten thousand were massacred in Paris and many more in the provinces; and it is generally accepted that as many as seventy thousand Huguenot Protestants were murdered by the Roman Catholics. Many Huguenots sought refuge in England.”

“But that was in 1572; surely by now they would be much integrated into English society?”

“Henry himself was spared, and eventually became the King of France; and by the Edict of Nantes, did establish religious toleration for Protestants in France. Which persisted until about ten years ago, when this same edict was revoked by his own grandson, and now many more Huguenots are fled to England again. Now do you understand?”

“Yes. I see. But that you say there are several Huguenots here in this Tower still surprises me. One might think that the security of the Mint would demand that only Englishmen should garrison this place.”

“Did I say several?” said Newton. “I meant many.” He collected a sheet of paper on which appeared two lists of names. “In the Mint, Mister Fauquier, Mister Coligny the assay master, Mister Vallière the melter, and Mister Bayle the moneyer. In the Ordnance, Major Mornay, Captain Lacoste, Captain Martin, Sergeant Rohan, Corporals Cousin and Lasco, and Warders Poujade, Durie, Nimmo, and Lestrade.