The Best of Men (33 page)

“Thieved from the garrison’s coffers, or so I heard,” the groom replied. “They’ll draw a crowd tomorrow. Everyone likes a hanging, whether they’ll admit it or not.”

Laurence listened as he saddled his horse. A hanging, he thought to himself; precisely the sort of event that Tyler might enjoy.

In the crisp light of dawn, Tyler made his way to the Castle wall where a stage had been erected and a throng of spectators were gathering. Nobody in the crowd seemed to know what the condemned men had done to suffer such a fate; not that Tyler cared. He was only disappointed that one of them went off too easily on a nice clean drop. The other gave more sport, kicking and squirming in the noose to speed his end. When it was over, the hangman cut them down and started selling pieces of the rope to those who believed such trophies might bring them luck.

Tyler bought himself some breakfast at a stall where a woman had set out oatcakes. He was munching away, entertained by the hubbub around him, when he noticed a dark head above the crowd. “Can’t be,” he whispered, a warm, triumphant sensation creeping over him. “But it is!”

Wrapped in a long black cloak, Beaumont was leaning against the wall viewing the scaffold with a bored expression on his face. An instant later, as if magically, his gaze shifted towards Tyler’s own. Their eyes
met, and Tyler smiled, predicting panic in return. Beaumont also smiled, which so confused Tyler that he hesitated, and then found his way barred by a knot of housewives armed with capacious baskets. By the time he pushed the women aside, Beaumont had vanished.

Tyler rushed to where he had been and espied him strolling along a side lane by the wall. Panting with anticipation, Tyler drew out his sword as he left the crowd behind. Rounding a corner, he had to slacken his speed: some cavalry soldiers were galloping towards him. He hid the sword beneath his cloak until they were well past, at which point Beaumont was nowhere to be seen.

Swearing, he turned one way, then the other. His hunter’s instinct led him to a small alley littered with refuse that ran between two dilapidated buildings on the opposite side of the Castle. Moving warily to the entrance, sword ready, he plunged in. It was like night after the bright sun, and his boots slipped in the slime underfoot, the smell as foul and ripe as that of the Black Bull’s midden. He would do more than piss on this rat, he told himself. Then he felt his hat fly off, as though a breeze had lifted it, and an even greater darkness descended: cloth, tight over his face and round his neck. A sharp blow behind his knees made them buckle. He dropped his sword as he tried to stop himself from falling, but he went face down in the muck, blind as a newborn kitten. Someone jumped on top of him, and a cord was put around his neck over the cloth, and tightened more securely. And on his right temple came the hard pressure of a pistol’s muzzle.

“Don’t move or you’re dead,” said his attacker.

“There – are troops – around the corner!” Tyler gasped, as the noose cut into his flesh.

“I don’t give a fuck.” Tyler became still as he registered the hatred in Beaumont’s voice. How strange, he thought, that they should now be locked together like mating animals, after all the months he had
spent following him. “Who are you working for?” Beaumont asked, loosening the cord a little.

“None of your business.”

“Spit it out while you still can.”

“Kiss my arse. I’m not telling you a thing.”

“Come on, Tyler,” Beaumont said, tightening the noose suddenly, nearly choking him, “who is he?”

Tyler felt the noose slacken again marginally, and he gulped for air. “Some grand nobleman in London. I’m not privy to his name.”

“What about Mr. Rose, where is he now?”

“I don’t know.” Beaumont hit him with the butt of the pistol, grazing his cheek; he had to make a bid for time, while he searched for a means to escape. “He’s gone north,” he blurted out.

“Is he with the King’s forces?”

“Aye.”

“Which regiment?” Beaumont hit him more violently. “Answer me.”

The noose tightened, then slackened once more. “Pr-Prince Rupert’s,” Tyler stuttered. The tension on his neck was agonizing, but he estimated that Beaumont did not weigh much, for all of his height.

“Is he an officer?”

“Aye.”

“What rank?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many others are in with you?”

“One more, maybe,” Tyler admitted, thinking of Poole’s friend, Robinson.

“You liked watching those boys hang, didn’t you,” Beaumont whispered, and the noose sliced deeper again. “Do you want to die as they did, shitting in your breeches?”

“No!”

“Then you’d better talk. Who else is in on your game?”

Tyler prepared himself to act. With his right hand he reached out and grabbed for Beaumont’s left, thrusting up with the whole of his body. He tossed Beaumont off, but could not know where the pistol might have gone. He lashed out with his fists. Beaumont moaned, and Tyler felt him pull away, perhaps to retrieve the pistol, or to aim it. Akin to Samson, sightless and desperate, Tyler clenched his teeth, seized Beaumont’s clothing and rammed his forehead into what he hoped was Beaumont’s nose. He heard a louder moan. Beaumont must have lost the pistol, or he would have fired it by now, Tyler reckoned. Dragging himself to his feet, he ripped at the cloth before his eyes. It gave way only partly, yet enough to let him distinguish Beaumont’s figure on the ground. He rammed the toe of his boot in Beaumont’s groin. Beaumont let out a yelp and curled up protectively. In the next second came a crack and a flash of light, and Tyler felt burning in his right shoulder.

“God damn you,” he roared, and lurched out of the alley. Another ball whizzed past his ear, scalding it; he was in sunlight again, able to see more, careering down the lane. Hearing voices and the returning thud of horses’ hooves, he shouted for help. Beaumont had now emerged, doubled over, and was stumbling in the opposite direction.

“Get him, get him!” Tyler yelled, as the Parliamentary soldiers pounded down the lane. “He went that way! He’s a Royalist spy – get after him!”

They clattered off, leaving him shaken that he should have revealed to Beaumont what little he had. Then he heard a volley of shots. Praying that the troopers had a deadlier aim than Beaumont, he staggered back to his lodgings.

Only sheer force of will drove Laurence from the alley: his genitals felt mashed to a pulp, he was retching from pain, and his nose streamed
blood. He heard horsemen approaching and headed for the river, scrambling on all fours through brambles and stinging nettles. As shots were fired overhead, he stuffed his pistols inside his doublet and slid into the cold water, where he submerged himself, lungs bursting for air. At length, it seemed the troopers had given him up for dead and ridden away. He clambered out, panting, and lay on the muddy bank, shielded by tall reeds, nursing his groin.

He should have strangled Tyler there and then, he thought bitterly, rather than try to extract information from a man twice his size and as strong as an ox. Now all he could hope was that he had wounded Tyler mortally, or at least bought himself a chance to reach Asthall without being pursued.

Although numbed to the core, he waited a while for any sign that the troopers might return. Then, fearing arrest at every step, he threaded his way through back streets and yards to the inn where he had left his horse.

About an hour later he arrived, tired but relieved, at Asthall. He could feel swelling around his eyes, and he was starting to sneeze, his nose leaving bloody streaks on his sleeve as he wiped it. Never mind, he thought; Seward would look after him.

A woman answered the door. She was as round as Clarke, her large red hands covered in flour. “You must be Mr. Beaumont, Dr. Seward’s friend! That’s a terrible bruise on your face. What happened to you, sir?”

“I was in a fight,” he said.

She invited him into the front room, which was as cosily appointed as Clarke’s lodgings at College, the air fragrant with the odour of baking. Seward’s striped cat was stretched out, basking on the flagstones before the fire. All that the scene lacked was Seward.

“Where is he?” asked Laurence.

“He’s not here, sir. He went to Oxford just yesterday.”

“Oh no!” Laurence almost keeled over, and she had to steady him. “Why?” he demanded.

“He didn’t say, but he left you a letter in case you visited in his absence.” She bustled over to the chimneypiece and then returned with a slim, folded piece of paper. “I must get those pasties out of the oven before they burn. You sit down here, sir.”

She guided him to a chair and left him slumped in it, ready to weep like a child. What madness or naïveté had drawn Seward out of this haven into the clutches of his enemies? He would surely die, if not by Tyler’s hand, then by that of the law as Parliament saw fit to execute it.

Laurence ripped open Seward’s letter; it was in a code they had invented together years ago. “Please,” he said, when the woman reappeared, “I need a quill, and some ink.”

She gave him what he requested, and he began to transcribe the few lines. “The boy’s spirit has been haunting me these past nights,” Seward had written. “I must give it rest, or I shall find none myself. I have looked into my scrying bowl. All will be well, so have no fear. I know the author of the horoscope, but I cannot trust his name to paper, as I shall explain when I next see you. Go to His Majesty and alert him of the danger. Confide in no one else. Then come to join me in Oxford.” At the end was a postscript: “The Cabbalistic code was my invention.”

A surge of anger rose up in Laurence. Seward must have recognised the code as his own when he first set eyes on the letters. Why had he not said so?

Army life did not suit Ingram, from what he had seen of it. Corporals Blunt and Fuller treated him like a schoolboy, and he was heartily tired of listening to yet another anecdote about their glorious campaigns abroad. Although physically tested by the endless drills, he had not yet slept a single night through, and he was unaccustomed to such a
complete lack of privacy in everything he did. He could not even move his bowels in peace and quiet.

Radcliff had returned a week earlier, apologetic for his long absence. “Some business at my estate,” he had explained to Ingram.

“Has it been pillaged, as you feared?”

“No, though my steward told me that some of my neighbours have been less fortunate. Oh, and I stopped by Faringdon. Your sister is in fine health, praise God, and your aunt, as ever. They send their best wishes. You should write to Kate,” Radcliff had added. “She is worried about you.”

Ingram was worried too, which was why he had not written. The thought of combat horrified him, and the endless delay before they would see any action only increased his dread.

On the evening of the twenty-second of September, Radcliff called his officers to attention. “Sir John Byron has occupied Worcester. He can’t hold it alone against Essex’s forces, so Prince Rupert must now go to his aid with eight troops of horse and ten companies of dragoons. We leave at first light.”

Blunt and Fuller let out a cheer.

“Excellent news,” Ingram said, belatedly, and noticed his brother-in-law look at him as though recognising a weakness for which Radcliff had no pity.

The camp was restless that night as the word spread. For hours Ingram tossed and turned on the hard ground; and when the men roused themselves to a cold breakfast, he could taste almost nothing of it.

Once on the road, however, he became infected by the general excitement. Peasants in the fields stopped their work to stare as the cavalry passed by, in advance of the dragoons, singing songs both bawdy and patriotic. The cornet of each troop of about sixty or so men held aloft its colours, whipped about by a pleasant breeze, and their progress was marked by the beat of drums and the jingle of spurs. Prince Rupert
galloped up and down their ranks on his white horse, making inquiries, checking a poorly maintained weapon, or sparing a few words of encouragement. Also with them, Ingram heard, were Rupert’s younger brother, Prince Maurice, and Lord Digby, as well as the King’s Commissioner of Horse, Henry Wilmot.

They journeyed with only short breaks until dusk, and had covered nearly forty miles when they camped down on the banks of the River Severn, before the last push to Worcester. Everyone was talking confidently about a victory, some even predicting that if they smashed Essex’s army here and now, it might be just a few weeks before the King could march triumphantly back into London.

As Ingram was eating supper with Radcliff, Tom Beaumont walked over, a broad smile on his face. “So, Ingram,” he exclaimed, “you’re to be blooded tomorrow.”

“As are you,” Ingram reminded him. “You’ve lost weight, Tom.”

“I was ill with the flux,” Tom said, as if he did not want to talk about it.

Ingram introduced him to Radcliff, who appeared surprised and interested. “Brother to Laurence? With which regiment are you, sir?”

“Wilmot’s Horse,” Tom replied.

“Where
is
your brother these days?” asked Ingram.

“I don’t know. He claimed he was also to serve with Wilmot, but I haven’t yet seen him in the ranks. Are all these your men, Sir Bernard?”

“They are, sir,” Radcliff answered.

Tom surveyed them with the air of a veteran, which greatly tickled Ingram, imagining what Beaumont would say if he were there. “Well, must be off,” Tom announced. “Good night to you, Sir Bernard,” he said, bowing to Radcliff. “Good night, Ingram.”

Radcliff gazed after him as he left. “Such a contrast,” he murmured to Ingram. “How far apart in age are they?”

“Five years.”

“And you are the same age as Beaumont, are you not?”

“Give or take a few months – he turned thirty this past June. My birthday is in mid October.”

“You are a true Libra, balanced, and ready to see both sides of an argument,” Radcliff said warmly. “And which day was he born?”

“The sixth of June. Why do you ask?”

“Our stars at birth exert a crucial influence on character in later life, don’t you agree?”