web-footed watermen were right after all. You come along with me, sir, eh?’
Wanswell staggered to my side. ‘Who you calling web-footed?’
‘Save your breath, numbskull.’
‘Me? A numbskull? I’ll rip your guts out for that, you fat bag of wind.’
Durrell looked at the small squat man and burst out laughing. ‘Quite the little gamecock, ain’t you?’
Wanswell held his gaze for a moment. Then he spat, shrugged and retreated to the alehouse, abandoning me to my fate.
Durrell advanced slowly towards me. I backed away along the path to the river, with a half-baked idea in my head that I might leap into a boat and escape him that way.
The alehouse door opened again, and Wanswell returned. He was carrying a staff shod with iron. Behind him came six or seven of his fellows. One of them had an axe over his shoulder. Another had a billhook with which he was slashing the air before him.
‘That’s him,’ Wanswell said, shaking his staff at Durrell. ‘That’s the poxy windfucker. He’s the one calling us web-footed fools. Fat whoreson.’
The watermen advanced towards him in a solid, menacing phalanx. Durrell ripped out his sword. He stood there irresolutely. Then he turned tail and walked rapidly back the way he had come.
The clock over the guardhouse stairs struck five.
When Mr Undersecretary Williamson had dismissed his clerk Marwood, he allowed himself a moment to consider what he had learned, and the most advantageous way to present it to my Lord Arlington. Then he rose from his chair, put on his cloak and walked through Scotland Yard into Whitehall itself. Rain drifted from a dark sky heavy with clouds. Twilight was creeping through the palace. He made his way to Lord Arlington’s office overlooking the Privy Garden and requested the honour of an interview with his lordship.
The clerk returned almost immediately and ushered him into the Secretary’s presence. The curtains were drawn and the candles lit. Arlington acknowledged Williamson’s greeting with a stately inclination of his head; he had spent four years representing the King in Spain, and he had brought back with him the manners of the Spanish court, as well as its language.
‘There’s news?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, my lord. I had a witness to the whole affair.’
‘What happened?’
‘They met in a close at Barn Elms. It did not turn out as we might have wished. Buckingham wounded my Lord Shrewsbury.’
‘Mortally?’
‘We don’t know yet. The blade went into the right side of his chest and came out at the shoulder. He fell to the ground. There was a good deal of blood. Apparently he was still conscious, but unable to stand.’
‘It’s most unfortunate,’ Arlington said. ‘I must tell the King at once.’ But he stayed in his chair, staring at the fire and showing no apparent signs of urgency. ‘I thought that Talbot and Howard would take care of matters, I really did. They hate Buckingham enough. Was anyone else hurt? Or killed?’
‘Jenkins. Once my lord was down, the Duke got in the way of Jenkins’ sword arm, and that’s when Howard ran him through.’ Williamson pursed his lips. ‘He’s dead.’
Arlington considered the information. Williamson waited, accustomed to his superior’s silences and knowing better than to interrupt. The Secretary always wore a narrow strip of black plaster across his nose, which Williamson privately thought a ridiculous affectation. The plaster was supposed to cover the scar of a wound sustained when Arlington had fought for the King in one of the early battles of the Civil War. People said its only purpose was to remind the world of his loyalty to the crown in the late wars. But they didn’t say it to his face.
‘It’s a great misfortune.’ Arlington frowned and then brightened. ‘Though of course there is a silver lining: we have a dead man, after all, and Shrewsbury wounded, if not worse: it cannot bode well for the four that survived unharmed. They must go into hiding, even flee the country.’
‘It depends on how the King responds,’ Williamson said.
‘Indeed.’
‘My lord, you know as well as I do that the King needs Buckingham’s services at present. He can’t manage Parliament without him.’
‘But he can’t ignore what’s happened, either. Such a flagrant breaking of the law. It must be manslaughter at the very least, with Buckingham at the heart of it, even if he did not deal the fatal blow himself. Who was your witness, by the way? We may need his testimony.’
‘My clerk Marwood.’
Arlington met Williamson’s eyes. ‘Ah. I know the name.’
‘I regret to say that one of Buckingham’s creatures saw him in the neighbourhood. A broken-down trooper from Cromwell’s horse. The rogue recognized him and tried to detain him. Marwood gave him the slip, but the fact he was there will get back to the Duke.’
‘That’s a pity. Do you trust him? Marwood, I mean.’
‘I believe so, my lord. He’s served us well in the past. He’s a careful man, and he knows the value of his place with me. His father was a Fifth Monarchist, but he himself has none of that dangerous nonsense about him.’ Williamson hesitated. ‘The King has employed him too, once or twice, through Mr Chiffinch, which I cannot say I like, though the King was much pleased with Marwood’s service. He gave him the clerkship of the Board of Red Cloth as a reward.’
Arlington stared up at the fresco on the ceiling. It showed the Banquet of the Gods, with Jupiter bearing a marked resemblance to King Charles II. ‘I think you’re probably right about Buckingham – in the next week or two, there will be a great deal of fuss and then a royal pardon, at least for him. The King opens Parliament on the sixth of February, so he needs the Duke in harness by then. He has to be, if he is to carry out his promise and persuade the Commons to grant the King the money he needs for the navy.’
‘If …’ said Williamson.
Arlington tapped his fingertips on the table before him, as if playing a flourish of notes on the keyboard of a clavichord. Probably a jig, Williamson thought sourly. The Secretary had a vulgar taste for them. Williamson himself sneered at jigs. His own tastes were more sophisticated. He loved the work of the new French and Italian composers, and particularly the unfairly beautiful harmonies of papist choral music.
‘Exactly,’ his lordship said at last. ‘You see the situation as I do.’
He smiled. Williamson could not avoid smiling back. The Undersecretary distrusted charm above all things – in the last few years, its dangers had been amply demonstrated by the King himself, who could have charmed the angels out of heaven if he had set his mind to it, and then handed them in chains to the Devil if the Devil had been willing to pay the right price and keep his mouth shut about the transaction.
‘In time Buckingham will damn himself in the King’s eyes,’ Arlington went on. ‘He’s a firecracker, dangerous when he catches a spark because you can never tell which way he will jump. But give him a steady job of work to do
