Blood's Game Page 13
He turned right after entering the Exchange and climbed the wide stone stairs to the first storey and once there, panting slightly and with his slight follower only ten yards behind him, he began to walk slowly down the gallery on the eastern side. This first-storey gallery held the stalls and small shops of the great guilds of London and of particular interest to Talbot Edwards, the glovers. While his follower loitered behind a huge square pillar, Edwards examined pair after pair of fine white gloves on the counter outside a glover’s shop. He spent the most time examining four pairs of beautiful white ladies’ gloves fashioned from the softest kidskin, with seed pearl buttons and gold edging at the wrists. He seemed deeply enamoured of them. However, finally, after returning to finger them several times, holding them up to allow the sunlight to play on the pearls, Edwards had a brief exchange with the glover’s apprentice, a gawky red-headed lad, then he weighed his slim purse in his palm, sighed, and with evident reluctance moved on to the next stall along where a selection of bright silk scarves had caught his eye.
It was enough for the man who watched him. William Hunt allowed Edwards to wander away further down the gallery and stationed himself two stalls along, outside a shop selling dishes of sweet curds and cream, ostentatiously reading the large placard that advertised the provender. Then, choosing his moment, when the glover’s apprentice was occupied with some matter in the recesses of the shop, Hunt glided forward, seized the stack of white gloves from the counter, thrust them swiftly into the bosom of his coat and, turning, walked briskly away, heading for the stairs.
Monday 17 April, 1671
Holcroft looked at the remaining cards in his hand. Four trumps, the ace, king, knave and four of spades – three trick winners, the four had to be discarded against the missing queen, which he was almost certain Captain George Fellowes sitting on his left was holding. He also held the ten of clubs – a winner, once the trumps were out, as all the other clubs had been played. Fellowes’ partner James Pratt, sitting to Holcroft’s right and sweating gently in his heavy moss-green coat, the livery of his master the Duke of Ormonde, had nothing much in his hand to speak of except for the queen of hearts and had unconsciously indicated this quite clearly by putting his cards face-down on the table, sitting back in his chair and pulling on a long-stemmed pipe of sweet Virginian tobacco.
Across the table from him Jack Churchill, his partner, was smiling calmly, but Holcroft could see a large drop of sweat on his clean-shaven upper lip. It was not only the heat that was making his friend perspire – although the weather was unusually hot for mid-April – the stakes in this game of cards were extremely high; more than twenty pounds in gold was riding on this last hand of the game, a sum greater than all the money that either Jack or he possessed; indeed, it was a year’s salary for Holcroft.
Holcroft, however, was discomforted neither by the unseasonal heat nor the deep play. He looked down at the tricks already won: three for himself and Jack and four for Pratt and Fellowes. With the winners in his hand and the honours that he would accrue from holding three of the four face-card trumps, they would just gain the necessary points to win both the game and the match; there could be no other outcome. He longed to tell Jack that there was no case for concern but the strict etiquette of the game forbade such a conversation and so Holcroft waited patiently, staring down at the table, while Fellowes played his queen of spades, Jack discarded a diamond, Pratt played the seven and he played his losing four.
As Fellowes, chuckling to himself, collected the trick and added it to their array on the table top, now five strong out of the twelve tricks in this game, Holcroft murmured: ‘All the rest are mine, I do believe.’ And to the frankly disbelieving faces around the table he quietly laid down the three trumps one after the other and finally the ten of clubs.
‘I believe this game and therefore the match is ours.’
Jack exploded in laughter while their opponents glumly scratched their heads and slowly reached for their purses. As his opponents began to count out the fat golden guineas on to the tablecloth, Holcroft slowly gathered up his playing cards.
‘Another match, gentlemen?’ he asked.
Fellowes, a corpulent, purple-faced man of thirty-five or so muttered something foul under his breath. Jack looked at him sharply. ‘Would you care to repeat that, sir?’ he said, pushing back his chair and standing up in one movement, a hand on his sword hilt.
Fellowes ignored him. He looked hard at Holcroft. ‘You swore to us that you had never played Ruff and Honours before, sir. But by your slick play today I would suggest that that is not entirely the God’s-honest truth.’
‘I have not played it before,’ Holcroft told him.
‘Yet you have fleeced us of a little over twenty pounds in less than two hours – how do you explain that, sir?’
‘Take very great care with your language, sir,’ said Jack, his hand still on his hilt. ‘You have been bested fair and square in this game but, if you continue in this line of talk, I shall be most happy to give you satisfaction at any time of your choosing.’
‘I have never played Ruff and Honours before, sir, on my soul,’ said Holcroft, ‘but I have played a game we call Slamm since I was a child and it is similar. I have not lied to you, sir, neither has there been sharp practice. But I too would be most happy to fight you, if you require it.’
‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Pratt, an amiable fellow, frequently drunk and not especially sharp-witted even when sober. ‘I am sure there’s been no impropriety. We are all friends here. Don’t be a sore loser, George, there’s a good chap. Pay up with a smile and take your lumps like a gentleman.’
Grumbling but making no comment that might call for bloodshed, Captain Fellowes did so, and he and his friend left the guardhouse with as much dignity as they could muster. As Holcroft listened to the sound of their boots on the cobbles of the Tilt Yard outside the hut, he gave a sigh of relief.
‘Well, now,’ said Jack, reaching for the bottle of secco and pouring them both a glass. ‘That has been a most satisfactory afternoon, my friend, most satisfactory indeed. I thought we were sunk for sure when Fellowes flashed out that queen of spades; and in the previous game when Pratt produced that ace of hearts at the last moment. I don’t know how you do it but it’s as if you can see their cards through the linen. Like a kind of magic.’
‘It is merely observation, Jack. I see my own cards, and by the cards that the other fellows play you can pretty soon see where their strengths and weaknesses lie. And as I’ve told you several times before, I always keep a running tally in my head of all the cards played—’
‘And that is beyond me, too, Hol. I am too busy thinking of my own poor play to reckon up the other side’s cards.’
Holcroft said nothing. He did not see how one could not know almost precisely where the important cards were after a trick or two had been played. The distribution of the cards among the four players dictated the play. All you had to do was remember who played what card at each trick.
Since their meeting in the Stone Gallery just before Christmas, Jack had persuaded Holcroft to join him on several evenings in a game called Trump against some of his friends. And the Duke of Buckingham had always been more than pleased to grant Holcroft the time off to play cards with Jack. Trump was a simple trick-taking game, Holcroft soon discovered, but it was very popular in White Hall and always played for money. Within a month or so, Holcroft and Jack were an established partnership, taking on all-comers at Trump and other card games and almost always coming away the victors.
Until now they had played for small stakes, just shillings, a pound or two at most, but since Churchill’s expenditure far outstripped his income, and he had no family money to fall back on, he had talked his young friend into attempting this high stakes game of Ruff and Honours, a gentleman’s game, as he had put it, with George Fellowes, a wealthy officer in the King’s Foot Guard, and James Pratt, the Duke of Ormonde’s senior page.
‘I salute you nevertheless,’ said Ja
ck, raising his glass.
Holcroft was aware that he had missed his dinner to play this match, and looking now at the small pile of gold on the green cloth in front of him, he said: ‘I’m clammed, Jack, would you care to come with me to Pettigrew’s chophouse for a bite? I’d be honoured to treat you for once.’
Jack laughed and shook his head. ‘The honour would be mine, Hol, but I have an engagement with a certain noble lady of our acquaintance and I must not keep her waiting. As you know, she has something of a temper.’
Holcroft felt a sudden leaden feeling in his stomach, quite overlaying his nagging hunger. He knew exactly whom Jack meant. And what it meant for him, too. He kept his eyes lowered as the soldier headed for the door.
‘I shall give her your love; she often asks after you, Hol, you know. She thinks you are avoiding her – that you do not care for her.’
It’s not that,’ said Holcroft, unable to look at his friend.
‘Well, go and see her sometime. She won’t eat you.’ And with that Jack walked out of the door and into the sunlight.
Holcroft sat alone at the table for a few minutes. He felt cold and a little angry, knowing what he now had to do, and absurdly resenting his friend for presenting him with the perfect opportunity for betrayal: an opportunity that he could not ignore. The weight of the duke’s unwanted commission lay heavy on his shoulders. He had done nothing about it for months now and recently Buckingham had been asking pointed questions about all the card games he played, about the movements of Jack Churchill and the Duchess of Cleveland and demanding to know when Holcroft would bring him the information he required. The duke had repeated the threat of dismissal and the promise of the hundred pounds. He had given him a week to fulfil his mission or face exile from the Cockpit. And Holcroft knew he could not resist him any longer. Eventually, with a heavy heart, he got up, swept the small pile of gold into his hand and followed Jack out of the door.
Holcroft located his master without too much difficulty. The duke was in his habitual seat in the gallery of the royal tennis court watching a game between the King, a vigorous player despite the affliction of his forty years, and John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, a notorious poet, wit and wastrel.
Holcroft sat down next to the duke and watched through the netting as the King in the service end, dressed only in a white shirt and breeches, thrashed the ball again and again past a scarlet-faced Wilmot at the hazard end of the chamber. The Earl of Rochester was clearly the worse for drink, and between points he kept turning to the gallery to declaim snatches of his scabrous poetry to the sparse crowd of White Hall idlers, which taunted his royal opponent for his lack of youth:
On thy withered lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour,
Shall thy youthful heart restore,
Such kind show’rs in autumn fall,
And a second spring recall;
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient Person of my heart.
‘It is my turn to serve, I believe, Your Majesty!’
At the end of the match, the King was visibly furious, despite his crushing victory over the younger man – he had won all six sets, and Wilmot had barely made a point in any of them – and he stomped to the side of the court to towel himself dry and drink a long draft of ale.
‘Your Grace,’ said Holcroft quietly to Buckingham. ‘I have the information you require.’
‘What?’ said the duke.
‘Ensign Churchill is at this very moment paying a call on the Duchess of Cleveland.’
The duke stared at him. ‘Now? Now? I’ve told you several times to give me timely warning. Very well, it will do, I suppose, it will do. And you will be wanting your hundred pounds blood money, I make no doubt.’
In fact, Holcroft was far less concerned about the money than the threat of dismissal but in the black self-hatred and misery of his betrayal, it did offer a gleam of comfort. It was a great deal of money. His mother had written to him in February and told him that she had been ill, nothing serious, but her own aged mother, whose fortunes were also in sad repair, could not afford a physician to treat to her. Holcroft consoled himself with the thought that the money could be forwarded to Lancashire, a physician might be hired and some small good might come of his treachery after all.
Buckingham had left his side and had gone down into the wooden-walled court to speak to the King. Holcroft watched as the King laughed, made a jest and slapped Buckingham on the back, his earlier irritation forgotten. Then it occurred to Holcroft that there was a way in which he might salvage his honour, nullify the betrayal, and still earn the hundred pounds for his mother, too, as long as he was quick. He got up, climbed up the ranks of gallery benches, went down the back stairs and slipped quietly out of the side entrance of the tennis court. Then he began to run.
*
Parson Ayliffe was rather more well set up than most men of the cloth. He was tall and broad-shouldered, heavy in the chest and, despite the gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his long nose, not the slightest bit bookish. Beneath his black high-crowned hat his innocent blue eyes gleamed with excitement. Neither did he walk like a parson. He strode through the Middle Tower on the western side of London’s greatest fortress, crossed the moat by the bridge and continued on through the Byward Tower as if he were the owner of this ancient royal palace, his high black boots clicking on the cobbles, and moving so fast that his companion, a slender, heart-stopping girl with bright-red hair under a straw hat with a green silk ribbon almost had to break into a trot to keep up.
They walked along the walled street that ran parallel with the river known as the Water Lane, stopped to admire Traitor’s Gate, a barred archway rising out of emerald water that led out to the Thames where for hundreds of years the enemies of the Crown had been admitted to the Tower of London to meet their fate, and caught a glimpse of the busy wharf beyond. Then they turned left and plunged through the gateway at the Bloody Tower, under the menacing teeth of its portcullis, and into the Inner Ward.
Parson Ayliffe nodded at a passing Yeoman Warder in his embroidered red tunic and old-fashioned hat and received a respectful salute at the sight of his broad white collar and clergyman’s black coat. To his left was Tower Green, where a dozen well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, some prisoners of His Majesty and others friends and visitors, were taking the air. The ‘unicorn’, a huge sullen grey-white beast caged in iron, snored in the northwest corner of the inner ward. To his right loomed the stone mass of the White Tower, the thick walls freshly painted with whitewash and seeming to gleam in the sun. He ran smartly up the steps and waited at the top for the breathless girl, Jenny Blaine, to catch up with him.
‘You are quite clear about the signal,’ said Ayliffe in a quiet voice, offering his strong black-clad arm for her to take.
‘For God’s sake, we’ve been over it often enough,’ she whispered crossly, and then smiled radiantly at an aged gentleman who was passing. He gave her an admiring leer and a courtly bow.
They crossed the ward by the row of trees in front of the Grand Stone House at the tower’s northern side, their branches thick with bright-green spring leaves, and passed through the gap between the Stone House and the barracks of the guard, heading to where a small three-storey building known as the Irish Tower stood. A mangy brown lion sat yawning in an iron cage by the wall. The reek of rotten meat and the big cat’s dung filled the air.
Up a short but steep flight of stairs they found themselves at an oak door painted a cheerful blue. Jenny pinched her both cheeks hard between finger and thumb, then slapped them lightly to add a little colour to her face.
‘Ready, my love?’
Jenny nodded. She looked more than a little terrified.
‘Keep the faith, Jenny-girl,’ said Parson Ayliffe, with a most unclerical grin, ‘and we’ll all come up smiling yet!’
And he rapped loudly and confidently at the door.
*
Holcroft
ran as fast as he could along The Street, turned right into the Privy Garden, sprinted along a row of houses and dived into the warren of apartments at the entrance of the Stone Gallery. He turned right, then left . . . then realized he was hopelessly lost and begged directions from a passing footman, a supercilious fellow who declined to speak to the gasping boy in the black clerk’s coat but merely pointed to a white-painted door at the end of a long passageway. Holcroft jogged down the corridor, took a moment to catch his breath, squared his shoulders and knocked.
There was no reply. He knocked again, banging his knuckles urgently against the white wood. Eventually, a long, long minute later, the door opened a crack and a pinched-faced, dark-haired maid in a white cap peered out and enquired crossly what he wanted.
‘I must speak to Her Grace, the Duchess of Cleveland, it is a most urgent and delicate matter.’
‘Her Grace is not receiving any callers today. She is indisposed; come back again tomorrow.’
Holcroft put his shoulder to the door with considerable force and barged it open, knocking the squawking maid flying. He stood for the moment in a hallway, suddenly indecisive, then seized the handles of the first pair of doors he saw and flung them open. Inside was a small but rather pretty bedroom, with a large brown oak wardrobe, a side table covered with pots of unguents and bottles of scent, a fragile gilded chair, a wash basin and jug decorated with pink roses on an iron stand and a large four-poster bed on which, among the tangled sheets, lay the entirely naked form of his friend Jack Churchill and, beneath him with her legs splayed, the long white body of Barbara Villiers. Both of the lovers stared at him with mouths wide open.
‘What the Devil do you mean by this, Hol,’ Jack demanded angrily. ‘Have you gone completely mad?’
‘Why, it’s your adorable page boy, Jack,’ said Barbara, smiling. ‘He’s come at last!’ Then to Holcroft, ‘Have you come to join us at our sport?’