The Royal Changeling Page 11

  Theophilus looked again at the unruffled Lake, and then at the transmogrified sword. It was clear something had occurred but his wits were not up to naming it. He’d had enough for the moment. Both the question and the weapon were stowed away out of sight; the first in an innocent expression, the second in the enveloping folds of his great-coat.

  Theophilus had always found that the next best thing to an adequate explanation for misdeeds was swift removal elsewhere. After one last check of Broadwater for incriminating carrion, he composed himself into an ‘I’m just out for a walk’ manner and headed home.

  As described, when he needed company there had been none. Now when its absence would be pleasing, there arrived a surfeit. Half a musket-shot along the circumnavigating path Godalming-wards, he was intercepted.

  Ordinarily, Theophilus could place, class and classify strangers to a tee. Clothing, deportment and confidence of approach rarely failed to slot people into their appropriate social niche. However, the oncoming gaggle were a puzzle. Ill-fits to any classification, a mysterious sight in the Home Counties, Oglethorpe questioned whether their fine, court-style, clothing actually belonged to them. They shambled too close together for his liking, more like a conspiracy than half a dozen normal men about their business. Likewise, there was something about them that rankled, a bobbing, one-pace-sideways-two-steps-on sort of gait betokening both purpose and hesitation – like a snot-rag of schoolboys egging each other on to some mischief.

  Theophilus relocated his pistol but did not yet draw it. An hour back he’d have smiled upon such potential-rich diversion but one chat with the Dark Angel per day was quite sufficient for him. Right now, the newcomers were only gravel in the timepiece of life. Besides, there were six of them – even if, man for man, they weren’t up to much. It was a lot of people to lay low at the best of times. Undaunted, he walked on towards the nuisances.

  Beholding him they halted and conferred, one or two bewigged faces occasionally emerging from the huddle for a fresh look. Much as he would have liked to, Theophilus could not pass for they collectively blocked the way. To one side lay a quagmire, on the other the Lake. The group now officially constituted a problem and he called to mind the sword strokes required to unbung the stoppage.

  ‘Good day,’ he said, affably enough and drawing close. ‘Be so good as to free my route, gentlemen, if you please.’

  They didn’t please. Instead, the request was discussed amongst themselves, a low babble emerging from the inward facing group. They were not to know that Theophilus’s temper could leap from moderation to mayhem in one lithe move, but even so, the discourtesy was inadvisable. The inner Oglethorpian beast stirred and growled.

  They heard that well enough and turned to face. Their attention was then more than fully engaged by sight of the (plain and simple) sword he’d drawn.

  ‘Mister Blade,’ he advised them, ‘often motivates when manners do not.’ Theophilus advanced to en garde.

  Though King Fear held court in their eyes, some even greater power overruled him. Oglethorpe had been prepared for almost any response from them bar a burning scrutiny of the foil he held. He was temporarily thrown. It was no special sword, a plain gentleman’s companion little different from the scores secreted at Westbrook. In those circumstances, for all they’d ignored him, it seemed unsporting to use the weapon to wound its admirers.

  ‘I’d be obliged for an answer,’ he barked. ‘Or prepare to make even closer inspection.’

  Happily, at that moment they seemed to conclude their study and drew back as one, showing the respect due a naked weapon.

  ‘Meea navidna cowza sawsneck,’ snarled one of them, a chippy little black-haired man – who then contradicted himself by translating: ‘I won’t speak any Saxon!’ The challenge was undermined by his shrinking even further back, till only his brow and burning eyes remained visible peeping round a colleague’s shoulder.

  Another of the group, the eldest and most stately, looked pained by this opening, and ventured marginally forward himself.

  ‘No. It is apologies we offer,’ he said, as genteel as Oglethorpe could wish. ‘Understand, if you will, we have little facility with the English tongue.’

  So that was it. Theophilus had been around and knew that not everyone in the world was fortunate enough to speak French or English. In Scotland he’d met (and killed) monoglots of the lingering Gaelic language. Somewhere or other he’d read that the same applied to the less blessed portions of Wales and Cornwall. To understand all was to forgive all.

  ‘If I was deficient in lucidity,’ he said, ‘then I withdraw. My apologies.’ The foil was smoothly re-sheathed even though unblooded. To a true gentleman, ignorance or innocence offered full restitution for offended honour.

  ‘Gracious you are,’ replied the spokesman – and then frowned, shaking his snowy locks. ‘No, I mean you are gracious. It is we who should sorry say.’

  His comrades bobbed and weaved even more, miming agreement.

  This was all very nice but the way was still congested. Theophilus attempted to stamp out the inner embers of irritation, before they reached the abundant combustibles nearby.

  ‘So,’ he said, through grim lips, ‘a visit from Wales, is it?’

  ‘In part,’ answered the old man, looking at some of the scrum around him. ‘And Kernow – or Cornwall as you doubtless term it. And Alba and Mannin – or Scotland and Mann on the same principle.’

  ‘I see.’ Theophilus couldn’t help but glance Lake-wards, half expecting an inopportune returnee. ‘Well, welcome to England and good day to you, gentlemen.’

  A firm step forward caused them to flinch – but not part. Theophilus halted abruptly and spoke likewise.

  ‘Is there some additional way I can be of service?’ he asked. If Ellen had been present she’d have recognised that the fuse was nearing the barrel.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said another of the gang, a combatant Cymric voice emerging from unpromising, runtish, material. ‘Has anything happened lately?’

  Oglethorpe looked at him and the man seemed to recede further into his luxuriant beard.

  ‘See this?’ rumbled Theophilus, indicating his sword hilt.

  ‘Yes, we have,’ answered the man, still defiant though paler. ‘And it’s not what we’re looking for.’

  The first spokesman glared balefully upon his companion, shaming him to silence.

  ‘What my friend meant,’ he explained, ‘is things untoward; which interested in we are. Scholars of the paradoxical we are; see?’

  ‘No,’ replied Theophilus, bluntly, and made as to march forward again.

  ‘Please, patience, look you,’ the old man asked, so sweetly as to oblige compliance. ‘We intend no offence. Only it’s an appointment we have: here and just lately. Delayed we were, on the road, see.’

  ‘Wickedly postponed and delayed, we were,’ echoed another, younger, man clad in Erin-green plaid.

  ‘By the blocking herd of cattle, moo-beasts, along the road,’ concluded the spokesman, ‘together with their hindering herdsman – may his eyes rot.’

  ‘Oh, them. Yes, I met them,’ said Theophilus, glad of at least one fragment of affinity with the Celtic mob.

  ‘Our carriage could not pass. And it’s missed our meeting we fear we have.’

  Theophilus shrugged his false sympathy. ‘Well, if it’s any comfort, I’ve been here half an hour and not seen anyone: not a soul.’ This was near enough the truth to satisfy conscience. He rather doubted the deceased Lady was the type to boast a soul. ‘Who is it you hope to meet?’

  The straightforward question floored them. They looked at one another like some invisible member of the party alone knew the answer.

  ‘A lady,’ said the spokesman, at long last and made hasty as the delay in reply grew dangerous. ‘She had something for us.’

  ‘Possible it is she’s here,’ said the hirsute, cocky one. ‘Not certain. She may wait some other place.’

  ‘The time is right though, as to really,�
�� chimed in another, hitherto silent, a pop-eyed wildman, improbably clad as a dandy.

  Theophilus’s mind was by no means his nimblest faculty but it generally got where it should in the end. Some metaphorical cogs and wheels finally meshed and turned to produce enlightenment.

  ‘Just one moment, sirrahs,’ he asked. ‘Are you in Duke Monmouth’s employ?’

  Their panicky denials were all the confirmation needed. He should have guessed earlier. Who else clothed and fed a menagerie of learned Celts this side of their twilight homelands?

  ‘It’s he who put the unsuited finery on your backs isn’t it?’ Theophilus stated, as bold as you like – for he had their measure now. ‘Did he send you here? Did he mention me?’

  They shrank back in earnest now, like a vicar meeting his bastard.

  ‘Who you talk about,’ gabbled the spokesman, ‘we don’t know. Nonsense you talk it is. Come on boys, maybe we’re not too late if we don’t dawdle. The conjunction might still persist.’

  And then Theophilus’s most immediate problem was solved by the group flooding past him, a busy river flowing round a granite island. His person was shunned even as they pretended he did not exist; the muttering scholars cringing away from proximity and contamination. Before he could protest (even had he a mind to) they were past and reformed into the same strange dancing group, heedlessly spoiling their silks in the bankside mire.

  Theophilus could have puzzled deeply about the encounter but decided not to. It was just too … tiring an accumulation of thoughts for one day. And anyway, he could always ask the Duke what he thought he was up to, letting his house-trained madmen roam the countryside. They were bound to meet at Court pretty shortly.

  The brief mutually troubling encounter over, the participants parted without sorrow. Neither looked back. Thus, in their great haste to be away from the fury-faced Sutangli, the Celts failed to notice something that might have interested them. Lieutenant Colonel Oglethorpe was not his normal agile self. His brisk stride was hindered by something concealed beneath his coat.

  Theophilus re-met the heifer herd, making slow progress back along the Portsmouth road. This time he was less inconvenienced. The herdsman exercised rare powers of control to clear a path for him and the beasts most wonderfully obeyed.

  ‘You see,’ thought Theophilus once through, ‘every human, however humble, can aspire to excellence in something.’

  He was right of course, for the most part, in principle if not in fact. The herdsman was not human.

  The pretence was maintained for a little while and the purpose-built roadblock ambled on. Then, their purpose fulfilled, the animals’ minds were released. They fled in all directions lowing in fear, back perhaps to the fields from which they’d been unnaturally gathered. By then, Theophilus was too far away – and committed – to see or hear or change what would be.

  The ‘herdsman’ studied the retreating soldier, the gold in his eyes being permitted to show. Thus unfettered he saw more, the distant Oglethorpe blurring into multiple images; the man seen in past, present and future conditions. He studied the last in particular, and smiled – in the perverse, misusing, fashion of his race. It was done.

  ‘He’s here!’

  Theophilus hardly needed telling. The gaudy coach and arrogant outriders parked at Westbrook said all. The latter had already caused swaggering offence, he could tell, judging by the set or flushed expressions – male and female respectively – of his servants. They were rushing back and forth trying to gather in their Master’s menagerie of strays, for fear these cavaliers would while away their wait in tormenting the dumb animals. That anxiety was well-founded but could now be set aside and the hounds left to bark at the hostile humans. Even Monmouth’s hired blades would be on best behaviour under the eye of Oglethorpe.

  That same eye noted that their sleeves bore tokens of the Green Ribbon Club, a Protestant street-trouble society operating out of sundry City taverns like the vast King’s Head in Chancery Lane. Likewise they brandished the ‘Protestant Flail’: deadly iron-enhanced coshes and a feature of that brethren. It was a new and revealing development.

  ‘Where is he, Ellen?’

  ‘In your library, Theo. I’ve arranged wine and wafers. A cold collation is being prepared.’

  Theophilus nodded approval. Ellen Oglethorpe was rock-solid, a dependable fixed point in the maelstrom of life.

  He’d taken care to dispose of one sword, the more ordinary one, before entering the house and Ellen-range. The second, intriguing and newly acquired, blade was more carefully hidden, wrapped in his coat in an obscure closet for later consideration. Just now, the third-down-from-top-dog in England commanded greater priority.

  Monmouth was lolling in a horsehair armchair, idly flicking through one of Theophilus’s dusty books. His friend’s arrival was doubly welcome therefore, providing an excuse to ditch dull learning.

  ‘Oglethorpe, how goes it?’ Plutarch’s Parallel Lives was tossed aside.

  ‘Passably well, my Lord. And you seem hale enough …’

  Monmouth stood and stretched. His aversion to repose was widely known.

  ‘Never better. And drop that “lord” business: we’re alone. Out of starchy company I shall always be plain James to you.’

  ‘And I’m honoured by it. By the bye, James, I think I bumped into some of your druids today!’

  For some reason the Duke wasn’t best pleased to hear it. This wasn’t the start he obviously wanted.

  ‘Well, yes, perhaps. My little hobby, eh? Yes, I think I recall scattering a few of them in these parts. There’s some research that needs doing. They … reckon they’re on the track of something. Who knows with such people?’

  Theophilus laughed: a manly sort of bark. ‘Least of all them it seems. I thought I’d have to cut my way through ’em like a bunch of Covenanters. I tell you, James, their coats are better than their manners.’

  On this point Monmouth could share in the joke.

  ‘Well, it saves on wages, Theophilus. I can hardly wear the same ensembles twice, and they’d sooner have my colourful cast-offs than good English guineas. It makes for a comical sight en masse, I grant you. Anyway, never mind them: it’s good to see you, you old swine!’

  They shook hands warmly and Theophilus doled out the decanter of Cadiz sack.

  ‘To James, then,’ he toasted, ‘Duke of Monmouth and apple of His Majesty’s eye!’

  ‘And Prince of Wales.’ It was added glibly enough, but derailed conversation like a pike to the face.

  Oglethorpe lowered his glass, doubt writ large across his honest red face.

  ‘I … had not heard that news,’ he said, choosing his words most carefully. ‘I thought another James, Duke of York, was heir to the Throne.’

  ‘At the moment,’ admitted Monmouth, quite unabashed. ‘For a while and in theory. Facts and his papistical professions suggest otherwise. He may have implausibly survived our three successive Exclusion Bills in Parliament – but we’ll have him yet. The title is rightfully mine. I am the Protestant heir.’

  Theophilus’s notions of a cheerful chat had gone sourer than a witch’s milk. The law – and honour – drew small distinction between hearing or speaking treason. For both his own house and his friend’s sake, he would have to tread warily.

  ‘Hence, I presume,’ said Theophilus, now spelling out the implications slowly and clearly, ‘your retainers’ tokens …’

  Monmouth grinned and nodded, seeking to engage his old comrade’s gaze.

  ‘My membership of the Green Ribbon Club is no secret, Theo. It is now time for partisans of the reformed faith to stand forward. Vital issues are at last in the open. I thought you were all for that sort of straightforwardness.’

  He peered sympathetically at Oglethorpe, widening his elegant eyes. They met no encouraging response. As he rather feared he might, he’d run aground on his friend’s tiresome core of steel-clad ethics. There’d been hopes that honeyed words and an appeal to loyalty might tack round it. Ho
w weary-making …

  ‘The title of heir,’ recited Theophilus, looking at his boots, though in no way ashamed, ‘is the gift of the King. It isn’t voted by the multitude or seized. James, my friend … my good friend, if we’ve not learnt the principle of legitimacy yet, then what was the Civil War for?’

  ‘What indeed?’ answered Monmouth, brightly, in contrast to Oglethorpe’s anguished tone. ‘Perhaps it isn’t over yet.’

  That jabbed at the scab-less wound in most British hearts. If there was something to unite all factions and confessions it was the desire to never see those days again.

  ‘You jest!’ exclaimed Theophilus.

  Monmouth subsided back into the chair, the opposite of relaxed. He steepled long tapered fingers under his chin.

  ‘For once, no,’ he replied. ‘The Restoration settlement has proved to be no final solution. If “legitimacy” prods forward a papist successor, then patriots must look for a re-definition.’

  Theophilus shook his head. A reviving swig of sack failed to warm his veins.

  ‘I pray that is not so. I most earnestly pray not.’

  Monmouth shrugged dismissively. ‘Well, pray on by all means, if you think it some help. Should you still believe in a deity who’s in the least concerned with us, then I won’t stand in your way. Now, Theophilus, the question is, will you stand in mine?’

  The last drop of comradeship drained from his voice. The query was a challenge. In terms of his audience it was also a mistake. Considering he thought himself so subtle, Monmouth should have known better.

  ‘If need be,’ Oglethorpe answered him. ‘You, and all men, know full well where I stand.’

  Monmouth could hardly deny it and conceded the point with a (strained) smile. It was Theophilus’s old-fashioned notions and consequent stupidity that were the foundation stones of his usefulness to men of power. There was no point in dashing yourself against those foundations, or prising them out, thus undermining the very fortress he sought to employ. It was time to regroup prior to a more considered attack.