Blood on the Strand (31 page)

‘May cannot kill you, because you are
mine
to skewer,’ Willys declared, becoming angrier by the moment as the enormity of what had happened dawned on him. He was not
a clever man, but even he could see his ‘recruitment’ had given Clarendon some powerful ammunition against his master.

Chaloner blocked another blow from May, then struggled to protect himself as Willys advanced with a series of determined swipes.
May started to move behind him, dividing his attention, and he saw it would only be a matter of time before one of them scored
a lucky hit.

‘Stop this at once,’ barked Wiseman, although he was
careful to stay well away from the flashing steel. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

‘You are behaving like Dutchmen,’ added the equerry in disgust. Recklessly, he tried to lay hold of May’s flailing weapon;
Chaloner ran forward to deflect the impatient swipe that would have seen the old man injured. ‘Desist immediately, you silly
young goats.’

‘Stay away, grandfather,’ warned Willys, lunging while Chaloner was preoccupied with May. Chaloner twisted to avoid the blow
and stumbled over a bench. His leg gave a protesting twinge, and he only just managed to jerk away from Willys’s next swipe.
‘Or there will be an accident.’

‘There will be no accidents,’ came a voice from the door. It was Holles and the palace guard, all carrying cocked handguns.
‘You know this is illegal. Put up your swords before I shoot you.’

Seething, May did as he was told, glowering as a soldier hurried forward to snatch the weapon from his hand. But Willys was
too enraged to see reason, and advanced on Chaloner with murder in his eyes. Chaloner raised his sword to deflect the first
blow, then ducked in surprise when a ball smacked into the wall near his head.

‘Next time, I will do more than make a hole in the plaster,’ snarled Holles. ‘This is your last chance – both of you.’

Since he looked as though he meant it, Chaloner let his sword clatter to the floor. Immediately, Willys raced forward. Chaloner
leapt away, and felt the man’s blade pass so close to his face that it sliced through the brim of his hat. Willys staggered
from the force of his attack, so Chaloner shoved him hard enough to make him stumble to his knees. The weapon flew from his
hand, and three
soldiers hastened to secure him while he was down. Meanwhile, Holles grabbed Chaloner, searching him for more weapons. The
colonel removed the knives from his belt and sleeve, but did not find the one in his boot.

‘I shall charge the lot of you with unbecoming conduct,’ he snapped, furious with them. ‘And it will be up to your respective
masters how they will deal with you.’

Willys tried to free himself, but the guards held him too tightly, so he settled for sneering instead. ‘When Bristol hears
how you deceived me, he will dispatch you himself, Heyden.’

‘It
is
Heyden,’ said one of the soldiers, hauling off the wig that hid the spy’s brown hair. ‘Look!’

Holles regarded Chaloner with unfriendly eyes. ‘I did not imagine
you
were the type to brawl in the King’s palace. I thought you knew how to behave.’

‘It was not his fault,’ objected the equerry, while Wiseman nodded earnest agreement. ‘He ordered May and Willys to desist,
and drew his weapon only to protect himself.’

‘It takes two sides to make a quarrel,’ replied Holles coldly. He turned to his prisoners. ‘You will be taken to the guardhouse,
where you will remain until your masters come to claim you. And my dag is reloaded, so do not try my patience by persisting
with this spat.’

Chaloner did not think he had ever seen the colonel so angry. He said nothing as he was escorted to the palace gaol, where
he and the others were given separate cells in which to wait. The doors were not locked, but there was no point in trying
to escape, even so.

Spymaster Williamson arrived almost immediately, but neither he nor May spoke until they were well away. Through the bars
in his window, Chaloner watched the two men stride across the yard, May speaking and
Williamson nodding. Then all was quiet, because either Clarendon and Bristol could not be found, or they declined to release
their recalcitrant retainers until a more convenient time.

A while later, there was a furious commotion in the yard outside, as a horse, saddled and ready for riding, bucked and cavorted
like a wild thing. Soldiers rushed towards it, making it even more agitated, and there were shouts of horror when a flailing
hoof caught one man on the temple with a sickening thud. In the next room, Chaloner heard Willys snigger at the spectacle,
although the laughter stopped abruptly when Wiseman hurried to help the fallen man, then stepped back shaking his head. Blood
began to pool on the cobbles, and Chaloner went to sit on the bench again, not wanting to see more.

Not long after, he heard murmuring in Willys’s room and supposed Bristol had arrived. There was a thump, followed by footsteps
moving across floorboards that creaked like a rusty hinge, then peace again. Eventually, there were more voices as a crowd
of people clattered into the prison. They burst into Willys’s room, and there was a short silence, followed by an ear-splitting
howl of outrage. Then the door to Chaloner’s room was hurled open and Bristol stood there, quaking in fury.

‘You killed him!’ he yelled. ‘You murdered Willys!’

Chaloner regarded Bristol in astonishment, wondering whether the man had been drinking. Behind him, other courtiers were pushing
their way forward, and among them was May. The odour of sweat, onions, horse and French perfume wafted into the small chamber
as more and more people crammed themselves inside, eager to miss nothing of the brewing confrontation.

‘Willys is dead,’ said May, fingering the dagger he carried in his belt. ‘Stabbed. You and he were alone in this part of the
building, so you had better start explaining yourself.’

‘Someone came to release him,’ said Chaloner, keeping his voice steady so as not to reveal his growing alarm. ‘I heard them
talking together.’

But he had also heard a thump and retreating footsteps, and if it had not been Bristol coming to retrieve his aide, then it
had been Willys’s murderer. But why would anyone want to kill Willys? With a sinking feeling, Chaloner saw the man with the
obvious motive was himself – he and Willys had quarrelled publicly, and then they had been left alone in adjoining rooms while
the horse had distracted the guards. To the dispassionate observer, it would look as though Chaloner had seized an opportunity
to dispatch his enemy.

‘Liar!’ fumed Bristol. He drew his sword and began to advance. ‘You slipped into his room when he was watching the escapade
with the nag, and you stabbed him in the back.’

‘Wait, My Lord!’ cried Holles, stepping between Chaloner and the enraged noble. ‘If Heyden has committed a crime, we shall
go through the proper procedures. We do not dispense justice ourselves.’

‘Why not?’ demanded May. ‘Heyden is the only one who
could
have killed Willys, and his guilt is obvious. Besides, you were willing to shoot him earlier.’

‘That was when he was armed,’ argued Holles. ‘He is not armed now, and we do not want folk thinking we go around skewering
people whenever we feel like it. Put up your sword, My Lord. It is for the best.’

May was disgusted. ‘I am just grateful Williamson
rescued
me
straight away, or Heyden would have slaughtered me, too. The horse’s antics were just what he needed – they lured the guards
outside, and let him get Willys alone.’

‘My men did go to help with the horse,’ admitted Holles, regarding Chaloner uneasily. An expression of relief crossed his
face as something occurred to him. ‘But Heyden cannot be the killer. We disarmed him – we disarmed all of you. He had nothing
to use on Willys.’

‘In Ireland, he carried additional weapons in his sleeve and boot,’ said May. He grinned in triumph when Holles’s second search
revealed the knife he had missed the first time, and turned to Bristol. ‘You should kill him while you can, My Lord, or Clarendon
will find a way to inveigle him a pardon.’

Bristol stared at Chaloner for a long time before sheathing his sword. May gaped at him in dismay.

‘No,’ said Bristol quietly, his temper now under control. ‘I do not want the Lord Chancellor complaining that we killed his
henchman in cold blood. It is better to drag Heyden through the public courts – and Clarendon will be mired with him.’

‘I have just inspected Willys, My Lord,’ announced Wiseman, pushing his way through the assembled courtiers like a stately
galleon through a flotilla of barges. ‘As a surgeon, I have seen more cadavers than you could dream about. Come, and I shall
show you something important.’

Bristol baulked at being issued an order, but his curiosity and Wiseman’s brash confidence prompted him to do as he was told.
Willys was lying near the window, blood seeping from a wound in his back. When everyone,
including Chaloner, had entered the cell, the medic began to hold forth.

‘The fact that Willys received a blade between his shoulders means he knew his killer,’ he declared, speaking as though his
conclusions were fact, not opinion. ‘And he trusted him. Willys was not a complete imbecile, and would never have turned his
back on Heyden, given what had happened earlier today.
Ergo
, Heyden is not the killer.’

‘Rubbish!’ shouted May, appalled to see Chaloner exonerated with such ease. ‘He sneaked in when Willys was preoccupied with
watching the horse, and took him unawares.’

‘I had not finished what I was going to say,’ said Wiseman haughtily. ‘However, I shall interrupt my erudite analysis to refute
your asinine theory, if that is what you want. These floorboards creak, as you can see for yourself, and Willys would have
heard Heyden coming – even above the racket emanating from the yard. So, your assertion, Mr May, is both erroneous and foolish.’

‘How dare you—’ began May, but Bristol held up his hand and nodded for Wiseman to continue.

‘My next conclusion pertains to the wound.’ The surgeon pulled the clothes away from the injury and took from Holles the dagger
that had been in Chaloner’s boot. ‘Even the most ignorant of us’ – here he looked pointedly at May – ‘will see that this broad-bladed
weapon cannot possibly have made this tiny round hole.’

‘Heyden is a skilled intelligence officer,’ said May tightly. ‘Of course he knows how to jab a blade into his victims with
the minimum of damage.’

‘Then show me the blood,’ ordered Wiseman, handing him the knife. ‘If that is the murder weapon, it will be
stained with gore, as will the killer himself. Can you see even the smallest speck of red on it – or on him?’

‘He cleaned it,’ argued May, not ready to concede defeat. ‘He had plenty of time.’

‘Cleaned it with what?’ pressed Wiseman. ‘There is no water here, and you cannot wipe blood off clothes anyway. It leaves
indelible marks – and believe me, I know.’

May was sullen. ‘Your “evidence” is circumstantial. It proves nothing.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Wiseman. ‘It makes a powerful case for Heyden’s innocence. And there is more. If he did kill Willys,
then why did he return to his own cell – to sit and wait for the alarm to be raised? Why did he not take the opportunity to
escape? The guards had gone, so there was no one to stop him.’

‘He wanted to confuse us,’ claimed May. ‘He—’

‘Oh, you are certainly confused,’ agreed Wiseman, drawing an amused titter from the watching courtiers. He looked away, as
if he could not be bothered to waste time on the likes of May. ‘Finally, there is the angle at which the blade penetrated
Willys.’

There were exclamations of revulsion as he inserted a thin piece of metal into the hole, to demonstrate the path the murder
weapon had taken through the body. It ran from left to right, and was obvious enough that Chaloner wondered whether someone
had made sure it had looked that way on purpose. He glanced at May and saw satisfaction stamped on his face, as if he had
hoped someone would notice.

Bristol knelt by the corpse to assess the evidence for himself. He stood, and regarded the surgeon thoughtfully. ‘This means
Willys was struck by a man who held a dagger in his
left
hand.’

‘Precisely,’ drawled Wiseman.

‘Heyden can use his left arm as well as his right,’ said May immediately. ‘I saw him in France once, fighting double-handed
to fend off traitors.’

‘But he cannot do it at the moment,’ said Wiseman. He took Chaloner’s hand and demonstrated how the splint prevented him from
holding the knife. ‘It is physi cally impossible for him to grip a blade with sufficient strength to deliver a killing blow,
so he would have resorted to his right. Lord Bristol has already established the killer was left-handed, so Heyden cannot
be the culprit.’

It was Bristol who asked the question that was uppermost in Chaloner’s mind. ‘Then who is?’

It was not every day the Court was treated to the spectacle of a murder and a man who knew how to interpret clues, and the
guardhouse was quickly packed with people, all clamouring questions. Chaloner saw several familiar faces among the many he
did not know. At the very back of the crowd were Johnson and Lisle. Lisle was beaming, delighted by his colleague’s clever
performance, while Johnson glared sulkily, jealous of the adulation that was being heaped on his rival.

Next to the surgeons, Brodrick and Temple stood in a way that suggested they had arrived together. Chaloner wondered why,
when they clearly detested each other, and hoped they had not been plotting. Lady Castlemaine stood near the front, but when
she learned Bristol was not going to run anyone through, she pulled a face that registered disappointment, and shouldered
her way outside again.

Eaffrey and Behn were there, too. Behn asked, in a loud voice intended to carry, whether Heyden could have
hired
a left-handed killer. Before Eaffrey could think of a response, the elderly equerry remarked that Behn was a silly young
goat to make such a stupid statement. People started to laugh, and the question was forgotten. With a start of surprise, Chaloner
recognised Scot’s pale eyes among the equerry’s maze of wrinkles, and smiled when his friend winked at him.