‘You said dawn, sir,’ replied Chaloner, glancing up at the sky. The east was definitely lighter than the pitch black of the west.
Thurloe raised his eyebrows. ‘I suppose distant glimmerings might be considered dawn by some, although not by most. You have been away from England too long, and have adopted foreign notions.’
‘I assumed you would be busy once it was light enough to read.’
Thurloe smiled. ‘Well, let us stroll in the darkness together, then. I do not like these gloomy winter mornings, and your company will not be unwelcome. What can I do for you?’
‘Do you have a gun, sir?’ asked Chaloner, as they began to walk. He gestured to the walls. ‘It would not be difficult to scale those, and a sword is no protection against a pistol.’
‘Is that why you came?’ asked Thurloe. He sounded amused. ‘To ask after my personal safety?’
‘No,’ replied Chaloner sheepishly. ‘I came to ask whether you might write me a testimonial, so I can apply for employment with the new government. As you know, Downing dismissed me in March, and …’ He hesitated, not sure how to describe the awkwardness of his situation without saying anything rude about Downing. For all he knew, Downing and Thurloe were still friends.
‘And he has never liked you, and declines to recommend you to his successor,’ finished Thurloe baldly. ‘Worse, he has put it about White Hall that you should never be hired again.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Chaloner uncomfortably.
‘And his malign influence stretches even further than that,’ Thurloe went on. ‘By declining to write you a reference, he is effectively ensuring you will never work for any respectable organisation again. Potential employers will want to know what you have been doing all your adult life, and your choice is either to admit an association with Downing, who will then say unpleasant things about you, or confess to being a spy, which is likely to see you killed.’
Chaloner nodded unhappily. ‘But although I worked under him, you were my real master – not just for the past five years in Holland, but in France, Portugal and Denmark before that – and so you are just as qualified to give an account of my skills as he is. In fact, you are more so, because I shared some of my intelligence with him, but not all – anything particularly important was sent to you without his knowledge.’
‘I would never tell him that, if I were you. He would think you considered him untrustworthy.’
‘I did – and I was right,’ said Chaloner, seeing there was no way to explain his situation without denigrating Downing – and if he and Thurloe were still friends, then that was unfortunate but unavoidable. ‘He was sending information to the exiled King while professing loyalty to you, some of which served to weaken the Commonwealth and hasten its demise.’
‘Hush, Thomas! It is not wise to make such comments, not even to me – especially since I happen to know you were no dedicated Parliamentarian yourself. Your loyalty lies with your country, not with its shifting governments, which is as it should be. But we should not waste time discussing Downing. What did you–?’ He dropped his hand to his sword a second time when he became aware of someone moving through the trees.
‘A messenger, sir,’ said Chaloner. The dagger he kept hidden in the sleeve of his tunic had dropped into his hand several moments earlier, when he had heard a twig snap underfoot. ‘From the General Letter Office. I recognise his livery.’
‘It is young Charles-Stewart,’ said Thurloe in relief, beckoning the boy forward. ‘Named after the King we executed thirteen years ago – not that I had any hand in that business, I hasten to add. However, you and I worked for the men who did, which makes us both suspect.’
The boy approached Thurloe with a friendly grin that suggested he had delivered letters to Lincoln’s Inn before, and handed him a satchel. While Thurloe asked after the lad’s ailing mother, Chaloner tactfully withdrew. He was replacing the dagger in its hiding place when there was a blur of movement and Charles-Stewart dropped to his knees. Thurloe stumbled backwards with a cry, and Chaloner saw two figures running towards the wall. One carried the satchel. Chaloner was racing towards them almost before his mind had registered what was happening.
‘Help the boy!’ Thurloe yelled, reaching towards him as he flew past. Chaloner staggered, and almost lost his footing in the sleet-plastered grass when he tried to avoid colliding with the frantic ex-Spymaster. ‘Do something! Hurry!’
Cursing under his breath, Chaloner skidded to a halt and knelt by the lad’s side, watching the two men scale the wall with half his attention, while the rest told him there was nothing he could do for Charles-Stewart. The knife had entered the lad’s chest and death would have been virtually instant.
‘I am sorry,’ he said to the distraught Thurloe. ‘He is dead.’
Thurloe’s face turned from appalled to dangerous as he hauled Chaloner to his feet and shoved him towards the wall. ‘Then catch those villains,’ he snarled. ‘Catch them – at all costs!’
Chaloner ran as hard as he could, but was nowhere near fast enough to gain the ground he had lost while stopping to tend the messenger. The two robbers had turned right along the wide avenue called Holborn, and were almost to the bridge, where he knew they would disappear into the chaotic maze of alleys that crowded the banks of the Fleet River. He forced himself on. Then the shorter of the pair collided with a cart, and his accomplice screamed abuse at him until he could regain his feet. Chaloner began to catch up, but was still too far away to capitalise on the mishap. When he saw they would reach the labyrinth of slums unchecked, the taller of the two turned to give Chaloner a triumphant, jeering salute before ducking down a lane. Chaloner tore towards the entrance, but when he reached it, feet skating across the treacherous, dung-slick cobbles, he found it empty.
The alley was not for the faint-hearted. It lay close to the Fleet, which meant it reeked not only of sewage, but of the odorous fumes released by nearby tanneries, soap-boilers and slaughterhouses. Over the years, tenements had clawed their way upwards to accommodate the increasing demand for housing, and, with each new floor, they inched closer to the buildings opposite, so the sky was now no more than a slender grey ribbon high above. At street level the passage was a thin, dark tunnel, too narrow for carts, and the ground underfoot was soft with old rubbish, squelching and sticky from the night of rain. More lanes radiated off it – dismal, stinking fissures that never saw sunlight. The cluster of hovels known as the Fleet Rookery was the domain of beggars, thieves, ruffians and harlots, living half a dozen or more to one chamber, and only the foolish or unwary ventured into it.
Cautiously, Chaloner eased down the lane, feeling the onset of the familiar stiffness in his left leg that always followed vigorous exercise. Usually, the old war injury was no more than a nuisance – an occasional cramp when the weather turned damp – but a furious run, like the one he had just made from Lincoln’s Inn, had set off the nagging ache he knew would plague him for the rest of the day. He tried to ignore it, concentrating on his surroundings as he allowed the dagger from his sleeve to slide into the palm of his hand for the second time that morning.
Out in the open, on the wide, bustling thoroughfares of roads like Holborn or the Strand, Chaloner was more than a match for any common cut-throat – time served with Cromwell’s New Model Army before Thurloe had engaged him as a spy meant he knew how to use the weapons he carried – but the cramped, sordid confines of the capital’s slums represented a different challenge. He knew it was rash to follow criminals into a place where its inhabitants would think nothing of killing a stranger and dumping his body in the river, but the simple truth was that he could not return to Thurloe and admit defeat – not if he wanted any sort of career in espionage.