It was easier than he had expected, because the building was old, and crumbling bricks provided plenty of handholds. He was soon outside the first-floor window, where he peered through the glass to see Fitzgerald sitting at the table and his associates gathered around him. The pirate’s soprano voice was clearly audible, and Chaloner was under the impression that he was in a sulk.
‘… do not see why it cannot be done. Our master will not be impressed, and neither am I.’
Chaloner tensed when Brinkes came to find out what was happening in the garden, but the henchman stormed straight towards the girls, and did not once look up at the window. In case he did, Chaloner eased to one side, using darkness and the ivy that grew up the wall to conceal himself. He turned his attention back to the meeting.
‘… rumours of our plans,’ Harley was saying. ‘I am not saying we-’
‘Jane will arrive on Wednesday, and that is that,’ snarled Fitzgerald. ‘The plan will go ahead — on St Frideswide’s Day, just as we have intended from the start.’
‘Yes,’ said Harley, clearly struggling for patience. ‘I am not saying we should delay. I am merely reiterating the need for caution, because half of London knows something is afoot.’
Down below, Brinkes had declined the prostitutes’ offer of a free session in the bushes, and was ordering his men back to their posts. The women were shoved unceremoniously through the gate, while he began a systematic search of the garden, using his sword in a way that said he would have no problem skewering interlopers.
‘You advise caution?’ Fitzgerald demanded, the anger in his voice reclaiming Chaloner’s attention. ‘I expected you to dispatch Teviot quietly, and what did you do? Send him into an ambush with hundreds of men! If you had shown a little caution then, our business might have been able to proceed more smoothly.’
‘It was not my idea,’ snapped Harley. ‘I was under orders, too.’
No one at the table looked as though they believed him, and Chaloner was not sure he did, either.
‘That escapade obliged us to rein back for weeks,’ said Meneses, in heavily accented English. ‘And now you say there might be an official inquiry.’
‘The next time Chaloner offers to influence matters, hear him out,’ said a man whose back was to the window. His voice was familiar, although the spy could not place it.
‘No,’ countered Brilliana sharply. She looked especially lovely that night, in a low-cut gown with a simple but expensive pendant at her throat. ‘It would not surprise me to learn that he killed Newell and Reyner, to make my brother think he has no choice but to reveal what he knows. But his tactics will not work. We shall weather this storm, just as we weathered Teviot.’
‘The gravel will make everything worthwhile,’ said Meneses. There was a gleam in his eyes that was immediately recognisable as greed, and it was echoed in every person around the table.
Then disaster struck. The windowsill to which Chaloner clung gave a sudden creak, and although no one in the parlour seemed to have heard it, Brinkes and the guards immediately gazed upwards. They could not see him, but they knew something was amiss.
‘It must be that damned Ruth,’ said Brinkes. ‘She is always spying on us. Well, this time will be her last. You two take her to the woods and cut her throat. I shall stay here. They must be almost finished by now — they told me they would not be long tonight.’
‘Why not kill her here?’ asked one of the men.
‘Because it will be messy, and we do not want Lester making a fuss,’ replied Brinkes shortly. ‘This way, he will assume that she wandered off. God knows, she is lunatic enough.’
Chaloner knew he had to act fast if he wanted to save her. Unfortunately, he could do nothing while Brinkes was standing guard — he would be shot or stabbed long before he reached the ground. Agonising minutes ticked by, but the henchman showed no sign of moving. In the end, Chaloner took one of his daggers and lobbed it, heaving a sigh of relief when Brinkes hurtled after the sound like a bloodhound. It kept him occupied just long enough to allow Chaloner to slither to the ground and slip unseen through the gate.
‘I doubt my ladies gave you long enough to learn anything useful,’ said Thurloe, appearing suddenly out of the shadows in the street. ‘They were ousted too soon, and-’
‘I made a noise, and Brinkes thinks it was Ruth,’ interrupted Chaloner tersely. ‘He has sent men to kill her.’
Thurloe was too experienced an operative to ask questions when a life was at stake. He ran with Chaloner to the Crown, but the attic was already empty. Stomach churning, Chaloner set off along Piccadilly, hoping the guards had not taken her to some other dark road to carry out their grisly orders. Then he saw them some distance ahead. When Ruth tried to pull free, one slapped her.
Chaloner charged forward, and cracked him over the head with the hilt of another of his daggers. The fellow dropped to the ground senseless. The second henchman hurled Ruth away, and drew his knife. He lunged, but Chaloner parried the blow with his arm, simultaneously driving his other fist into his opponent’s throat. The guard collapsed, gagging and struggling to breathe.
‘Did I teach you to do that?’ asked Thurloe in distaste. ‘Or is it something you learned yourself?’
‘She cannot go back to the Crown,’ said Chaloner, wrapping his coat around the terrified, shivering woman. ‘I will take her to Long Acre. Will you send word to Lester? I have no idea where he lives, but Williamson will.’
Chaloner spent a long and restless night in his garret, although Ruth seemed none the worse for her experiences. She curled up on the bed and went to sleep almost immediately, instinctively trusting him to look after her. Lester did not arrive until dawn. He flew to his sister’s side, then closed his eyes in relief when he saw she was unharmed.
‘I thought you would come sooner,’ said Chaloner, irked to have spent the entire night playing nursemaid. He had not liked to leave Ruth, lest she woke and was frightened by her strange surroundings. Or worse, wandered off. He had not even been able to use the time to work on the cipher, because it was in Tothill Street, concealed in his boot.
‘Williamson did not know where to find me — I was out all night, monitoring courtiers. I can scarcely credit their capacity for merriment. Indeed, Brodrick and Buckingham are still at it, although Grey and Kipps are finally unconscious. What happened to my sister?’
Chaloner told him, half tempted to include what he had overheard in the Crown, too. He resisted, but because of his habitual reluctance to share intelligence, not because of Thurloe’s warnings.
‘I should have taken her away from that place the moment she told me there was something amiss,’ said Lester, reaching out to stroke her hair. ‘It was obvious that her fascination with its comings and goings would bring her trouble.’
Chaloner agreed. ‘So why did you leave her there?’
‘Because Landlord Marshall and his wife are kind to her,’ Lester explained. ‘And she finds comfort in familiarity. If I took her to my own home, she would be alone and miserable.’
‘What will you do with her now? She cannot go back.’
‘I shall hire a woman to sit with her. Here, if you would not mind, just until this mischief is over. It is as safe a place as any, and it will not be for more than a day or two.’
Chaloner nodded acquiescence, feeling he owed Ruth something, given that it was his fault she had almost been murdered.