Lawrence thought about his clerk. ‘He’s a bright enough lad, just needs a bit of polish. If he really thinks to get taken on by Sir Thomas, he needs to be at the Inns for a while. I’ll send him back down to Clifford’s in January and if all goes well, Thomas’ll be in possession of his estate and looking for help with the management of it by the time Jed’s finished down there.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘And for me, well, I’d be better with a younger lad that I can train from the start. It’s time Jed was off – twenty’s a good bit older than most lads are when they arrive at the Inns.’

  ‘You were older when you first went.’

  He squeezed her and nuzzled into her neck. ‘Special case. I had a fortune to make for myself, so I could marry you.’

  She smiled to herself as she poked a stick into the embers. ‘You had not a groat in your pocket when you asked me.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘But you said “Yes” all the same, didn’t you?’

  The moon was up now, bright in the dark sky and lighting the long sweep of frosting grass that stretched down before them to the black cold waters of the Ouse. Around their feet, where in springtime a carpet of green would be studded with yellows and purples pushing up to meet the sunshine, all was crisp and bare. Above them the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey spoke of an old magnificence. ‘If I can make my mark at the quarter sessions, and show my face down in Westminster Hall from time to time, well, one of these days, when they’re appointing new justices . . .’

  ‘Lawrence,’ she breathed, ‘the assizes. You aim to be a judge?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not indeed? You will make a success in this.’

  ‘With you beside me I will.’

  She laced the fingers of her gloved hand into his and he pulled her up, to start for home. ‘You would have made a success of your life whoever you’d chosen.’

  He’d said she was mad, when she’d declared they should celebrate his homecoming from his six weeks in London with a moonlight supper in the abbey grounds, but there had been magic, not madness, when he’d looked in her eyes. Manon was naive about so much of the world, but in the matter of him and her, he had come to learn that she was always right.

  Their house was towards the top end of Fossgate, elevated from the waters of the Foss and on the other side from the hall of the Merchant Adventurers. He’d given a great deal of thought, when first they had come to York over two years ago, at the height of the hangings and beheadings of the regicides, to exactly where they should set up their home and he his practice. ‘Most of my clients will be merchants, and the thing that makes merchants more nervous than anything else is the thought of losing money. Supposing he gets bad news down at King’s Staith, then what does he do? He runs up to the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall with his bad news, thinking to get help from his friends. And as they tighten their grip on their purses, his friends will tell him to get himself a lawyer, and to lose no time. So off he’ll run, out into the street again, and what will he see?’

  Manon had smiled. ‘He’ll see the house of Lawrence Ingolby, lawyer, on Fossgate.’

  Some might have wondered how it was that a young lawyer of no family had the means to buy such a property, and Lawrence did nothing to disabuse those who voiced their assumption that it had been his patron, Matthew Pullan, who’d provided the funds. Matthew had helped, of course, with furnishings and draperies not needed at Faithly Hall, but the actual money had been waiting for them with the Liverpool agent of Manon’s father. All through the years of the Protectorate, Damian Seeker had stashed away most of his income against the possibility that one day the Stuarts might return. As it became clear to him that that was what was happening, he had taken what he needed of it to make a new start, far across the Atlantic ocean, and the rest he had left for his daughter. There had been enough for Lawrence and Manon to take the house on Fossgate, with two full storeys and an attic. ‘We’ll need the attic, for the servants,’ Lawrence had said.

  ‘You’ve thought it all out, Lawrence,’ she’d said.

  Lawrence’s face had become very still then. ‘I’ve thought everything out, Manon, my whole life. It’s the only way to do it.’

  They were making a good life in that house on Fossgate, with its door the colour of ferns in summer. She loved that door, and so did he: their own front door, to their own house. Now, Lawrence reached out a hand to lift the brass bear’s head knocker that he wasn’t quite so keen on, but that she had insisted upon the minute she’d seen it. Before he had rapped a second time, the door opened to reveal his clerk, Jed Penmore, waiting for him.

  ‘Let us by, Jed – we’re like to freeze to death out here.’

  Jed stepped back and pointed to the door of Lawrence’s business room. ‘You have a visitor, a client,’ he mouthed.

  ‘What, tonight? We’re only just back from London.’

  ‘That’s what I told him, but he insisted you would see him. In your office.’

  Manon gave him a peck on the cheek as she took the basket and headed towards the kitchen. ‘Who is he then, that can’t wait till morning?’ he asked Jed.

  But Jed was bundled aside before he could reply.

  ‘Just off a Dutch boat at King’s Staith! Foreigner – at this time of night!’ The portly woman of indeterminate age who’d presented herself a few inches from Lawrence’s face was aglow with disapproval.

  Lawrence uttered an oath under his breath, and leaned towards her. ‘Madge, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: you steer clear of my clients, and you mind your own business, there.’ He pointed down towards the kitchen.

  ‘Hmmph,’ Madge muttered as Jed turned her by the shoulders back in the direction of her proper domain. ‘You see if I’m not right.’

  Lawrence glared at Jed, who mumbled his apologies for his grandmother. How it was that, not a fortnight after taking on the young man to train for his clerk, he had somehow also found himself saddled with Jedediah Penmore’s harridan of a grandmother remained a mystery to Lawrence, but saddled he was. Manon, within the space of an afternoon, had become inexplicably devoted to the woman and there was no getting rid of her. At least she could cook, that was something.

  When Jed returned from the kitchen, Lawrence handed him his hat and muffler. Now he lowered his voice. ‘ Is he foreign, this new client?’

  Jed shook his head. ‘English. Says his name’s Horace Appleton.’

  Lawrence paused for a moment in the act of hanging up his cloak.

  ‘Right, well, you get up to the parlour and see to it that the mistress has enough coals for the fire, then you can get off out to the Golden Lion or somewhere, give you peace from your grandmother a while.’

  ‘Will you not need me to make a note?’ asked Jed.

  Lawrence shook his head as he handed the young man some coins from his pouch. ‘I know this Appleton,’ he said. ‘It’ll be something and nothing. You get yourself on out for the evening. Tell your friends all about London.’

  Jed didn’t need telling again. Once his clerk had disappeared Lawrence went to open the door to his office. A man, heavily wrapped in winter travelling clothes and with his back towards the door, was bent over the fire, rubbing his hands. Lawrence stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘“Horace Appleton”. And I thought you were still in Holland.’

  Andrew Marvell turned around, unravelling a heavy black muffler from about his neck. ‘I am ,’ he said.

  Lawrence Ingolby knew for certain that he was looking at a man of flesh and bone and not a spectre. ‘Are you indeed? Then what’s brought you here tonight, to York?’

  Marvell paused in the midst of divesting himself of his outer garments. He looked at Lawrence, then at the door, then back at Lawrence. His voice was very low. ‘The old business,’ he said.

  It was a short time later, the fire blazing and the key turned in the lock, that Andrew Marvell was warmed up enough and ready to tell his tale. He poured himself a second glass of wine from the jug Lawrence had gone himself to fetch.

  ‘You know I have been abroad these past several months?’

  ‘What I know is the Corporation of Hull’s none too happy their commissioner isn’t at Westminster, representing their interests.’

  Marvell manifested a touch of injured pride. ‘The town of Hull might do well to remember that there are higher interests than its own.’

  Lawrence was tempted to remark that the town of Hull paid Andrew’s wages, but he held his tongue. Instead he said, ‘They might be more understanding if they knew what those higher interests were.’

  Marvell gave him one of his direct, meaningful looks. ‘That’s what I’m here about. I was sent to the Low Countries several months ago, to conduct certain matters on behalf of his lordship the Earl of Carlisle.’

  Lawrence waited.

  ‘I journeyed first to the Hague where, as you know, George Downing is in residence and conducts our relations with the Dutch on His Majesty’s behalf.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Lawrence, ‘the unimpeachable Mr Downing.’

  Marvell coloured. Downing, like himself, owed his early advancement to the patronage of great figures in Cromwell’s Protectorate. Unlike Marvell, Downing had begun the process of saving his own skin long before the Republic had gasped its last, and had commenced his betrayal of his former cause and comrades as soon as it became clear that the Stuarts would regain their throne.

  ‘I do not claim to like the man,’ said Marvell by way of defence, ‘but “he must needs go, that the Devil drives”.’

  ‘Aye, well, if anyone’s the Devil, it’s George Downing,’ said Lawrence.

  Marvell bit his lower lip. ‘I fear he may prove to be.’

  ‘Out with it, Andrew.’

  ‘Well, as you know, many of the regicides excepted from the King’s mercy and his Act of Oblivion are suspected to have fled abroad.’

  Lawrence said nothing and so Marvell hurried on. ‘With some few exceptions, most notably Thomas Scott, early attempts to track down or entrap them down proved unsuccessful.’

  Lawrence lowered his voice and measured his words carefully. ‘These are not nothing, these men you seek, Andrew. These are not nobodies. By their very nature, those that the King will not forgive for their role in his father’s death are able men.’

  Marvell swallowed. ‘I know that, Lawrence, and I . . . I do not . . .’

  Lawrence wondered if Marvell was going to claim he did not seek them, but his visitor moved on. ‘They are not nobodies, and that is why it was resolved last year that it should fall to George Downing to find them.’

  ‘Aye, and he did, didn’t he? He found them and betrayed them. Shipped them back to England to be put to death without a trial.’

  Marvell was now looking at the floor. ‘I believe there was a trial, though . . .’

  But Lawrence wasn’t having it. ‘That wasn’t a trial. All they did was confirm it was them, before they executed them,’ he said in disgust.

  Marvell was a little hoarse. ‘I do not claim that there is any honour in what he does, but in my position . . .’

  Lawrence relented. ‘I know, Andrew. It’s not safe for you to go against him.’

  All Marvell’s accustomed pomp was gone from him. ‘I am under instruction to travel the Netherlands on our nation’s business, and I am to listen in taverns and coffee shops, ingratiate myself in places where our English exiles are known to be.’

  ‘And you pass on to Downing what you hear, and Downing hires mercenaries . . .’ said Lawrence.

  Marvell gave one slow shake of his head. ‘There was a rumour that Downing suggested assassination of any regicide they came across but he was told that the King would not countenance it. Even I trust Downing little more than you do and I only pass on to him information that might tend to our nation’s economic interest, or that hints at a threat to His Majesty’s person. As I go about the King’s legitimate business, I watch for strangers on market days in small Dutch towns, I observe who comes and goes at certain inns. And in the town of Vianen I heard something that caused me to leave that very night and come here.’

  Lawrence waited, feeling his breathing grow heavier, becoming more conscious of the silence in the air between them, the crackling fire, the happy noises from the floor above them.

  ‘It concerned,’ another glance at the door, another lowering of the voice, ‘it concerned your wife’s father.’

  Any tiny flutter of hope that might have begun to stir in Lawrence died. Seated on a stool facing Marvell, hands planted on his knees, he drew a heavy breath and summoned what resilience he could. His wife’s father, Captain Damian Seeker, feared intelligence handler and army captain in the service of Oliver Cromwell. He had left England not for the continent but for the Americas shortly after the Protector’s death. ‘What’s he done?’

  Marvell stared at him. ‘Done? My dear fellow, I have no idea what he might lately have done and, with all due respect to your lovely wife, I have absolutely no wish to find out.’

  ‘I don’t understand then.’

  Marvell put down his glass and leaned closer to Ingolby. ‘As far as I am aware, only two people in England know where Damian Seeker is.’ He raised his glance briefly to the ceiling. ‘One of them is upstairs,’ he lowered his gaze to meet Lawrence’s eye, ‘and I am looking at the other one.’

  Lawrence shook his head. ‘I love you like a brother, Andrew, but I’m not telling you where he is.’

  ‘And I’m not asking you to. But something came to my ears in Vianen that you need to know. Someone’s looking for him.’

  Lawrence relaxed. ‘Still?’

  Marvell nodded. ‘There are men in positions of power now who will not let go their grievances, and one of them nurses a grievance against Damian Seeker.’

  Lawrence puffed out his lips. ‘I daresay there’s more than one – I mean, he didn’t exactly go out of his way to make friends, did he?’

  ‘Ahem, no. I believe that circle was fairly small.’

  ‘More like a dot,’ observed Lawrence. ‘Anyway, you’re always welcome here, Andrew, but none of this is news, and certainly not worth your slipping over here from Holland, in disguise, to tell us.’

  ‘I haven’t finished.’ Marvell looked aggrieved. ‘There is a man in London, a writer and stirrer of controversies, called Roger L’Estrange. Did you ever come across him?’

  ‘Not in person, but I’ve come across his pamphlets. “No Blind Guides”, against Milton – that was him, wasn’t it? Nasty stuff.’

  Marvell nodded. ‘I’ve had dealings with him myself on occasion, over his attacks on Milton and others. He is determined upon the office of Surveyor of the Press. He is not a pleasant man.’

  ‘And what’s his interest in the captain?’ So few people knew of their true relationship that Ingolby never had occasion to use the phrase ‘Manon’s father,’ and so could not quite get it over his tongue now.

  ‘I don’t know what lies behind it, but L’Estrange has a particular and very personal dislike for Damian Seeker. He has, it seems, spent the last year and a half seeding the idea that your father-in-law was the late King’s executioner.’

  Lawrence laughed. ‘What? And anyone’s listening to him? The size of Damian Seeker? If it had been him, folk would have known straight off. L’Estrange will never prove that.’

  ‘Won’t need to,’ said Marvell. ‘People who think they saw one thing can be persuaded they saw something else, if told it often enough. L’Estrange aims at controlling the presses – there’s word of him bringing out a new news-sheet. By the time he manages to get his hands on the captain, he’ll have managed to convince half the country that Damian Seeker was the man who swung the axe over the late King’s neck.’

  ‘He’ll never find him.’

  Marvell looked him directly in the eye. ‘He’s utterly determined, Lawrence. Henry Bennet has just been named Secretary of State and has dismissed Joseph Williamson from his office. Williamson had charge of intelligence matters up to now and it’s doubtful that Bennet will be able to run the office without him, but L’Estrange is rumoured to have his eye on Williamson’s place. To produce the late King’s executioner would give him exactly the credentials he needs.’

  ‘He’ll never find him,’ repeated Lawrence.

  Marvell continued to look at him from beneath heavy brows. ‘I’m afraid that what I discovered in an inn three nights ago in Vianen suggests he has been making progress. It seems that L’Estrange has at some point learned of the connection between yourself and the captain and has sent someone to York to look into it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is that they may well be already here.’ Marvell looked again towards the floor above, from which sounds of childish laughter were drifting to them. ‘You must take great care, Ingolby.’

  Lawrence sat perfectly still, digesting what his friend had said. Perhaps they had been foolish to think the danger of those past times was gone, that old resentments had died with the last cry of the first butchered regicide. After some moments of silence, he stood up and placed his hands on the mantelshelf, his back to Marvell. He was damned if he would let anyone damage the life they’d made here and would be damned for all eternity if he was going to let any harm come to his family. ‘I will, Andrew,’ he said at last. ‘I will take care. Thank you for coming to warn me.’

  Marvell got up and began swathing himself once more in his outer garments.

  Lawrence looked at him. ‘You’re not going now, are you?’

  ‘I leave from King’s Staith before dawn. I plan to be back in Vianen before I am missed enough for word of it to reach George Downing in the Hague. And . . .’ he looked regretful, ‘it would not be good for either of us if I were to be found here.’

  Lawrence understood, but he made an effort to lighten things between them, arranging his face into the more carefree demeanour Marvell was familiar with. ‘But you can stay a half-hour, can’t you? My clerk won’t be back till well after nine, and the old termagant in the kitchen goes to bed early. I’ll be skinned alive and fed to the neighbour’s cat if I let you go without getting you upstairs to show you to Manon. You always were a favourite with her.’ He grinned. ‘Though goodness knows why. And besides, you haven’t seen our treasure yet, have you?’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29