Paula Marshall - The Beckoning Dream

Tom Trenchard’s chuckle was a rich one. “Well said, mistress. I shall remind of you that—frequently.”

Sir Thomas smiled benevolently on the pair of them. “I shall inform you both of the details of your journey. You will travel by packet boat to Ostend and from thence to Antwerp in Flanders where you may hope to find Grahame—if he has not already made for Amsterdam, where I gather he has a reliable informer.

“You will, of course, follow him to Amsterdam, if necessary. You will send your despatches—in code—to my agent here, James Halsall, the King’s Cupbearer. He will pass them on to me.

“You will pose as merchants buying goods who are sympathetic towards those unregenerate Republicans who still hold fast against our gracious King. To bend William Grahame to our will is your main aim—because like all such creatures he plays a double game. Why, last year he sold all the Stadtholder’s agents in England to us, and now word hath it that the Stadtholder hath rewarded him with a pension—doubtless for selling our agents to him.

“Natheless, he is too valuable for us to carp at his dubious morals, and if gold and a pardon for his past sins brings him home to us with all his information—then so be it, whether there be blood on his hands, or no.”

Sir Thomas was, for once, Catherine guessed, dropping his pretence of being a benevolent uncle, and doing so deliberately in order to impress on her the serious nature of her mission. She heard Tom Trenchard clapping his hands and laughing at Sir Thomas’s unwonted cynicism.

She turned to stare at him. He was now slouched down in his chair, his feral eyes alight, one large hand slapping his coarse brown breeches above his spotless boots. The thought of spending much time in the Netherlands alone with him was enough to eat away at her normal self-control.

“It seems that only a trifle is needed to amuse you, Master Trenchard. I hope that you take heed of what I told you. I go to Holland as your supposed wife, not as your true whore. Remember that!”

“So long as you do, mistress, so long as you do.”

The insolent swine was leering at her. He might not, by his dress, be one of King Charles’s courtiers, but he certainly shared their morals. It did not help that Sir Thomas’s smile remained pasted to his face as he informed her that she was to pack her bag immediately, and be ready to leave as soon as Tom Trenchard called on her.

“Which will not be until after your last performance tonight. And then you will do as Tom bids you—so far as this mission is concerned, that is.”

Catherine ignored the possible double entendre in Sir Thomas’s last statement. Instead, looking steadily at him, she made one last statement of her own.

“I may depend upon thee, Sir Thomas, that should I succeed, then my brother’s safety is assured.”

“My word upon it, mistress. And I have never broke it yet.”

“Bent it a little, perhaps,” added Tom Trenchard, disobligingly, viciously dotting Sir Thomas’s i’s for him, as appeared to be his habit.

Catherine, after giving him one scathing look, ignored him. She thought again that he was quite the most ill-favoured man she had ever seen, with his high forehead, strong nose, grim mouth and determined jaw. Only the piercing blue of his eyes redeemed him.

She addressed Sir Thomas. “I may leave, now? After the commotion your tipstaffs made, my neighbours doubtless think that I, like my brother, am lodged in the Tower. I should be happy to disoblige them.”

“Indeed, mistress. I shall give orders that your brother be treated tenderly during his stay in the Tower, my word on it.”

And that, thought Catherine, is as much, if not more, than I might have hoped. She gave Sir Thomas a giant curtsy as he waved her away. “Tell one of the footmen who guard the door to see thee home again, mistress,” being his final words to her.

She had gone. Tom Trenchard rose to his feet, and drawled familiarly at Sir Thomas, “Exactly as I prophesied after I toyed with her at the play. The doxy has a ready wit and a brave spirit. I hope to enjoy both.”

He laughed again when the wall hanging behind Sir Thomas shivered as Black Wig, otherwise Hal Bennet, m’lord Arlington, emerged from his hiding place where he had overheard every word of Catherine’s interrogation.

“The wench will do, will she not?” said m’lord. “She may have been the fish at the end of your line, Thomas, but you had to play her carefully lest she landed back in the river again. I observe that you did not directly inform her that she is to use her female arts on Grahame to persuade him to turn coat yet once more—he being a noted womaniser. That may be done by Master Trenchard in Flanders or Holland—wheresoever you may find him!”

He swung on Tom Trenchard, otherwise Sir Stair Cameron, who was now pouring himself a goblet of wine from a jug on a side-table. “She knew thee not, Stair, I trust?”

“What, in this Alsatian get-up?” mocked Stair, referring to the London district where the City’s criminals congregated. “I doubt me whether she could have recognised the King himself if he were dressed in these woundy hand-me-downs.”

“Well suited for your errand in the Netherlands, Stair. None there would take you for the King’s friend, rather the King’s prisoner.”

“Or the friend of m’lord Arlington who turned the Seigneur de Buat away from the Grand Pensionary and towards the Peace party—which cost Buat his head,” riposted Stair.

Arlington’s reply to his friend was a dry one. “His fault, Stair. He was careless, and handed the Pensionary a letter from me, not meant for the Pensionary’s eyes. Do you take care, man. No careless heroics—nor careful ones, either.”

Stair Cameron bowed low, sweeping the floor with his plumed hat that had been sitting by his feet.

“An old soldier heeds thee, m’lord. My only worry is the lady. She may, once she knows what her part in this is, take against Grahame and refuse to enchant him. Furthermore, playing the heroine at the Duke of York’s Theatre is no great matter, and coolness shown on the boards might not mean coolness on life’s stage when one’s head might be loose on one’s shoulders. We shall see.”

Arlington dropped his jocular mode and flung an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “If aught goes amiss, Stair, and the heavens begin to fall on thee, then abandon all, and come home. Abandon Grahame to the Netherlanders if you have cause to suspect his honesty. Let the wolves have the wolf—we owe him nothing.”

“And the lady?”

Arlington looked at Sir Thomas Gower, who shrugged his shoulders. “Deal with her as common sense suggests. She is there not only to seduce Grahame, but to help you with your supposed insufficient Dutch and to give an air of truth to your claim to be a one-time solder turned merchant. You will both claim to have Republican leanings and in consequence are happy to spend some time in God’s own Republic—which is the way in which the Netherlanders speak of Holland.”

Stair toasted Arlington with an upraised goblet. “Well said, friend, and I swear to you that I shall try to persuade the Hollanders that I am God’s own soldier—however unlikely that is in truth.”

Arlington ended the session with a clap of laughter. “The age of miracles is back on earth, Stair, if thou and God may be mentioned in the same breath. Forget that—and come home safely with Grahame and the lady in thy pocket. Great shall be thy reward—on earth, if not in heaven.”

Stair Cameron bowed low again. “Oh, I beg leave to doubt that, Hal. From what I know of our revered King Charles and his empty Treasury, I shall have to wait for heaven. What I do I do for you, and our friendship. Let that be enough.”