The Whispering Swarm

  ‘So you are of the party that would execute the king and make commoners of all highborn lords and ladies?’

  ‘I lean, it is true, towards support of the Puritan cause. I do not hold extreme versions of those views, though it is hard to disagree with folk who look to the Bible for their guide. Unjust tyrants are dealt with swiftly in the Old Testament. Psalm 149 admonishes us to bind our king with chains and his nobles with iron fetters. I believe God empowers us to curb the king and his court. We must always be wary of popery in disguise. However, I do not believe we should do murder in the name of the commonwealth.’ He took a long pull of his pint and threw me a searching look as if he feared he had said too much. But I was simply relieved because it had begun to occur to me that Captain St Claire might be a Parliament’s man searching for information. A spy, in other words. What they still called an intelligencer.

  Then I remembered standing beside him as we met the aggression of Messrs Clitch and Love. I knew, somehow, that I could trust him with my life.

  ‘Do you go tomorrow to witness the execution of the king?’ I spoke as casually as I could. Most of London must have been asking that question. ‘Or shall you take advantage of the public holiday to enjoy some other pursuit?’

  He smiled a little unhappily. ‘What else is more involving? But I’m told Whitehall and much of the City itself will be so packed with Puritan soldiery it will be impossible to do or witness anything. I pray that poor devil’s soul goes quickly to its maker.’

  ‘You’re a praying man, Captain St Claire?’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  I was amused. ‘Not where I come from.’

  ‘You come from a godless land indeed.’

  ‘I think so,’ I agreed. Here, almost everyone accepted the Bible as the last word on any argument, whether moral, legal or political. Many Puritans found in it a clear admonition to put the king on trial and to execute him. They did this reluctantly, but in God’s name. My growing preparedness to believe in God’s existence didn’t extend to taking as true all the conflicting messages of a myth cycle to the letter. I found deism as close as I came to having a religion. I had that in common with many signers of the American Declaration. I was confused again. I knew I couldn’t match Captain St Claire in any theological debate. I finished my pint and said that I was now ready for bed. ‘Do you stay at the inn, Captain St Claire?’

  ‘I have quarters not far from here.’

  ‘Then I wish you goodnight and Godspeed!’

  ‘And to you, Master Moorcock. I trust you will fare well tomorrow.’

  I left him in a thoughtful mood. I knew how important God was to these people in determining actions or inspiring their best and bravest deeds. To understand their reasoning, I needed to understand their God. I thought Captain St Claire might be a good teacher. Meanwhile I’d read a bit more of Milton’s Paradise Lost in the hope of interpreting the Cromwellian mind-set at its most brilliant. When I got back to my room I opened the book again. Milton seemed even more profound and complex than I had originally thought, but while I was impressed by his vision of God I still had no coherent ideas of my own. God was not necessarily benign. Indeed the majority of His supporters seemed to regard Him as entirely otherwise; a rather cruel and intolerant entity. In the Old Testament, God’s smiting record bettered Hitler’s. The 1960s and ’70s had been years of intense optimism, when together we had fought and won a few battles for local issues as well as national ones. I was living at the end of a generally optimistic period when our efforts to introduce a little more justice in the world seemed to be paying off. A distinct plus for the Prince of Peace. But what if Jesus was just another guy who defied that terrible old tyrant of the Old Testament? Eventually, and still reading Milton, I fell into a deep sleep.

  I awoke suddenly, too early. In case I went back to sleep again I prepared everything for the morning. I had a full suit of ‘redcoat’ clothes, including a breastplate specially altered to fit me, a musket which I knew to have a horrible kick if held in the hands, a monopod on which to rest the gun, a big, heavy straight sword and a holstered pistol, all part of a campaigning soldier’s equipment. The monks would wake me at the proper hour. We had to be near the Privy Steps to St James’s before dawn. I looked at my watch. Molly had been sent ahead to divert any guard. If more than one was on duty she must distract them until we arrived. I could attest to her flirting skills.

  I wondered if I should pray. I had a strong sense of what she risked. How would I feel if Molly suddenly vanished from my life, killed by the ball from a Roundhead musket? All that relish for life snuffed out. I could not hate her when I thought of that.

  I got up shivering and washed in cold water. I then donned the warm New Model Army uniform, including the standard-issue russet shirt that gave them the ‘redcoat’ sobriquet. Nick Nevison had once served in the army. He had shown me how to buckle all the little straps and buttons. Our uniforms had been accumulated over time from various sources, taken off soldiers or stolen from some quartermaster’s store. I thought I could still smell the original owner of mine. The helmet came down low over my forehead and the straps of the breastplate chafed my shoulders and ribs, the knee-high boots were a bit tight as were the breeches, but the long waistcoat hid my obvious problem. My cell had only a small square of mirror but I imagined that I would pass as one of Cromwell’s troopers.

  After a little bread and wine for my breakfast I stepped out of the abbey’s relative warmth into the invigorating bitterness of early morning. They waited for me. The cold made my teeth ache, my lungs felt filled with razor blades and my breath boiled into the faint orange glow of Prince Rupert’s bull’s-eye lantern which burned whale oil and could be adjusted fairly easily. I was angry with myself because I had forgotten to bring an electric torch from home. None of the others had more than a couple of dark lanterns between them. We would need them for the tunnels.

  We assembled in the courtyard of The Swan With Two Necks. Porthos, Nick and I pored over the map while Duval and Aramis went to fetch Master Jessup from his happy nest in the tavern’s ruined basement. He was singing to himself as our friends handed him over and I took his arms, getting a good grip underneath while Porthos and Nevison took the feet. We would alternately change positions as we carried him. He said we were his bosom friends and tried unsuccessfully to remember a song until he relapsed into a mumble. We left the filth on his face and his hair tangled so he looked as little like the king as possible. We planned to clean him up before his big moment.

  At Prince Rupert’s signal we formed ranks around Jessup. Eight of us led by the prince as captain. Then, with Jessup bundled amongst us, we went marching, pretty smartly, following him down the serpentine streets of lower Alsacia above the river while the air grew colder still. I was glad of my leather gloves and the woollen socks inside my boots. I also had a cloak in which I could wrap myself if I needed it.

  ‘Molly?’ I asked the prince as we marched.

  ‘Gone ahead as planned,’ he said.

  In spite of the warm clothing, I was still shivering. The dirty grey fog clung to every surface and made vision almost impossible. We had to stay close and hold our rank because we could not see beyond one man at the front and another at the rear.

  We soon reached Whitefriars Old Stairs. At low tide the slimy wooden steps led to an equally treacherous set of planks forming a walk across the shingle. Now the frozen slippery stairs ended at uneven ice windswept into bumps and jagged ridges. I couldn’t tell what lay ahead for any significant distance. Each man held onto the next man’s musket. Led by Prince Rupert, we stumbled over the ice.

  The air flickered and billowed and I found myself stepping a certain way, following threads of colour, murmuring to myself—Five and four, follow the nines, sixes and threes, make the score; follow the Fool and the Hanging Man, first to the pool and the silver span—and there was that mysterious Saracen knight, his face veiled, swathed in dark green, leading us out of the fog. I tried to speak to him but h
e didn’t see us. I knew a moment of sudden, intense pain.

  Quite suddenly the mist lifted. The Green Knight had vanished and we were in bright moonlight, able to see the stars in a clear, black sky. I now saw Prince Rupert pointing at an equally rickety set of steps. They led back off the ice and up an easy incline to the black silhouette of some three-storey, half-timbered buildings, a few with lights burning in their windows. Snow stood inches thick on old roofs. Smoke fluttered from leaning chimneys.

  We crept up another plank walkway, dragging Jessup between us. The smell was horrible. We were very close to a sewage outlet. Then we were marching through the seventeenth-century streets like any other detachment of musketeers told to watch for the commonwealth’s enemies. If challenged we would explain our muffled prisoner as a captured thief. We might sport a greater preponderance of Van Dyke facial styles and long hair, including my own, but many in Cromwell’s service wore exactly the same. If Jessup didn’t accidentally betray us, we need not fear unwanted attention.

  I had known we were to march at the double for some distance and was very glad now that we did. The cold still exhausted us. At length Prince Rupert made us pause and take a pull of brandy from his flask. Even out here I could still hear the Whispering Swarm. That constant chorus calling me back to the Alsacia.

  Now, as we marched swiftly through the narrow, twisting streets, we saw trudging toward us another detachment of Parliamentary soldiers. My heart beat heavily as we drew closer. Suddenly Prince Rupert brought us to a halt and saluted the oncoming officer and his men. To disguise his aristocratic drawl, he spoke in a broad West Country accent.

  ‘Officer of the Watch. How sayeth thou?’

  ‘All’s well, sir, God save us.’

  From somewhere far off I thought I heard a roll of winter thunder. The worst kind of storm, my mum always said. I was never sure why. Unless it was its rarity. She was given to hyperbole but winter storms over London really did scare her.

  Once again, breath streaming, breastplates gleaming in that grey, clear hour before dawn, we nine, partials of Father Grammaticus’s ‘potent twelve’, marched out of dense London lanes still primarily built of timber and into the wider streets approaching Whitehall, surrounded by her not-quite-sylvan groves and pastures where soldiers crowded thicker than flies on dung. Grave, saluting cavalry rode by. Infantry marched seven deep, their partisans, as that kind of broad-bladed weapon was called, at the slope. Muskets at the ready. Roundheads were everywhere. The cream of Cromwell’s conquering crop were here to ensure the setting up and maintenance of his free citizens’ commonweal. This acknowledged that ‘the people are, under God, the original of all just power’ and that the Commons Parliament represented the people who had ‘the supreme power in the nation’. Nothing less than a modern republic.

  We marched back to the river. One by one we slipped down a fairly steep bank, which stank ten times worse than the first, and reached a kind of raised stone jetty. Taking a careful look about him the prince reached to move a hidden lever revealing a grille, hinged and well kept. Someone had been charged to keep it in good order.

  Moll peered out at us. Her eyes glittered with heat. I hadn’t seen them like that for ages. That special orgasm she sometimes enjoyed. That lopsided smile which came afterwards. I felt a bit ill. In other circumstances I would have said she had just had violent sex. Was that how she distracted the guard?

  As we filed through Prince Rupert asked Moll, ‘Was it hard to quell the guard?’

  She made a small noise, shrugged and glanced over at a man sprawled inside the gate. ‘It was easy once I’d exhausted all other routes.’

  His throat had been expertly cut. He had died instantly, almost smiling.

  And then I knew what Molly missed in me. The darkness and danger … Forbidden adventure. The excitement of jumping blind into mystery.

  Killing the redcoat had quickened her blood. She had begun to look like her old self, the girl I thought I fell in love with. Moll Midnight, the laughing girl highway thief, ‘for justice and the right’, was back with a vengeance, a bloody razor hidden in her muff. I was glad when she slipped out of the tunnel, back up to the riverbank, and waved a swift goodbye. She went to prepare the way for the king. I was trembling. Moll’s happy relish for fun had been replaced by that terrible fire in her eyes. Fueled by something far stronger than cocaine or speed.

  The tunnel was of brick and rubble supported by old wooden beams through which mud oozed. It was dark. I could easily imagine Elizabeth’s lover hurrying up from the river to greet her. Perhaps the smell had not been quite as bad then! I was seriously afraid I’d slip on a patch of filth. With the supine Jeremiah Jessup held between us we continued to slither on through that horrible stuff. Twice we passed dilapidated entrances to other tunnels. I guessed anyone taking either of those risked the worst kind of death. My stomach recoiled just thinking about them. I was very glad our plan did not involve returning that way!

  At long last we reached the end of the tunnel. Through a couple of peepholes we saw two Roundhead soldiers. They had their backs to a smaller man being helped into a second wool shirt and what might have been a second pair of drawers. From the others in attendance I guessed this to be Prince Rupert’s uncle Charles. The man in clerical black was doubtless Dr Juxon, the king’s chaplain. Four or five gentlemen standing near the door were the king’s courtiers. They would have to be isolated while we dealt with the guards. The last thing we wanted was panicking retainers.

  Swords bared now, we crouched in the tunnel until the prince gave his signal. Then, when the guards seemed most relaxed, we threw open the secret door and poured into the room, stunning the Parliamentarians with the hilts of our swords and swiftly disarming them. With pistols at their heads they were bound and gagged while an astonished King Charles, drawing a long brocade dressing gown about him, glanced enquiringly at the clergyman and his courtiers as he collected himself and, in his slightly pinch-lipped, high-pitched tones, asked what in the name of Heaven was happening.

  Sweeping off his helmet, Prince Rupert fell to one knee. ‘We are here to take Your Majesty to join his cousin of France until such time Your Majesty chooses to return to reclaim his throne.’ His language was awkwardly formal, especially given that Charles was his uncle.

  ‘Rupert! Oh, how unkind we were to you, my darling! Of all those we did treat unjustly, you were the most loyal!’ The king’s large copper-coloured eyes held tears. For whom I was uncertain.

  ‘Sire, this is our enemy, a foul murderer and thief who deserves death a hundred times. He will die in Your Grace’s place. Be it God’s will, none shall suspect the truth until we are well on our way to France, to be reunited with Your Grace’s lady the queen and her children. Quickly, Your Grace. He must be dressed in your clothes!’

  As he listened, the king’s expression bore a mixture of gratitude, puzzlement, kindness, love and that hard-headedness which had rarely served him well. He shook his head reflectively. ‘Our dear, sweet bonny nephew. It is too late, you see.’ He smiled slowly, lifting a tired hand to his head. ‘Too late for us to lodge any defence of our decisions. Too late to change certain actions which might have been better for our nation. Yet God guided me, of that I’m certain…’ This last a failing murmur.

  One of the king’s courtiers, understanding the plan, stepped forward. ‘Sire, since time is of the essence—’

  ‘We will not be rushed any further into folly, Wisheart. Flattery and poor judgment have played too great a part in this business already.’ There was a melancholy, wistful undertone to his words. He was quietly sorrowful. At that moment I saw an unexpected dignity in the king. I believe a sense of reality had at last come to him. His manner was reflectively sober, unlike the haughty defiance displayed at his trial. His affection for Rupert was genuine and touching. ‘Had we not listened to the advice of others, ’tis certain our favourite general might now be standing beside his victorious king.’ That strange, fluting voice took on its own gravity. ‘N
ow we, who sought to lower that price like some Cheapside merchant, must pay the price of kingship. And die like a king.’

  ‘Sire. Your Grace blames himself too much.’

  ‘We go to our deserts by God’s will.’

  ‘Sire! In all humility I am God’s instrument, come to rescue Your Grace!’

  A wan smile brightened the king’s sadness for a moment. ‘I face a saviour later today, who is the only saviour with the authority to save me.’ And with that he reached forward, snatched up Prince Rupert’s hand and kissed it. ‘Tell our queen and her children how we died and how the people received our death. Only one other thing we ask, for we are the sum of such things. We live on as dust and memory. There is one thing I want you to promise to do, dear Rupert.’

  ‘Ask me anything, Your Grace.’

  The king inclined his head. For a long time he peered into his nephew’s eyes as if seeking some unknowable truth. He made to speak, then changed his mind. He paused. His last word was whispered.

  ‘Remember.’

  Then he turned from us.

  Prince Rupert made a gesture towards him.

  The king signalled for his gentlemen to continue dressing him. He cleared his throat. He spoke briskly, even cheerfully. ‘Well, well, messieurs, let’s continue. We’ll wear warm clothes and plenty of ’em, lest the people think we shiver from fear. Two sets of drawers should be enough.’