The King's Chameleon (19 page)

Henry nodded and swallowed hard. Faulkner watched as tears ran uncontrollably down his cheeks and he began to sob, his body wracked by it. No right-minded man likes to see another weep, least of all his own son; Faulkner turned away.

Long afterwards Faulkner recalled the days that followed as the worst of his life. Men of Faulkner's stamp find charged idleness the worst ordeal that fate can ordain they undergo, for the responsibility they bear while remaining inactive is likely to drive an active fellow mad. Fortunately, he had the staunch and unflinching support of the two Anglo-Dutch officers, who better understood the complications of the situation in which Downing and his fellows must of necessity operate. They knew little of the detail, being mercenaries bound by honour to their current paymaster, but they understood that the extraction of those under the protection of the States General was illegal and impossible, without some form of warrant.

‘Your Sir George Downing is as slippery as an eel and as cunning as a fox,' one of them remarked, ‘but he will lay-out gold and succeed in time.'

Time. That was the trouble. The two Dutch house-servants arrived early the following morning and were met and dismissed – not without a suitable fee to help them delay opening their mouths prematurely. After this brief flurry of excitement, boredom competed with a necessary vigilance, so that it seemed that the five inhabitants of the rented house existed only to watch the motes of dust descend slowly through the air from wherever they came. Faulkner and the two officers set up a roster, one man constantly watching the two prisoners, who were allowed to walk about the room one-at-a-time and were fed twice a day. They were allowed to relieve themselves behind a screen as necessary, and the door to the room was kept locked. It had only one window, which let onto a small courtyard in the rear of the house, and this could be barred. A padlock was applied to the bars. The chief danger was that the guards would fall asleep out of boredom. The two officers could leave the house if they did so discreetly from the rear, but Faulkner was confined like his prisoners, though he had the liberty of more rooms, and unfettered feet. No weapons were kept exposed in the room itself for fear of either Henry or Judith getting hold of them, but each of the three guards carried a dagger in his waistband under his doublet, which would be difficult to extract even if he dozed off. Outside, three bared swords lay ready on a table and three wheel-locks lay alongside them, fully charged. At the slightest noise from inside, those without could enter fully armed and, while one man was on guard inside with the prisoners, another was obliged to sit in a chair in the hall-way, ready to answer a call for help, or investigate a suspicious noise. Each man did four hours within, four without and was allowed four hours in bed. In this way three days passed.

On the fourth morning there came a great knocking on the street door. Faulkner and the English officers were instantly on their feet and the light of hope kindled quickly in the prisoners' eyes. Faulkner, his sword drawn, went in and joined the officer on guard.

‘Not a word,' he snarled at the prisoners. The man on stand-by went to the door and laid his ear against it. Faulkner could hear voices outside, but after a further knocking, the voices faded. Their visitors had gone. As Faulkner went out into the hall-way, re-confining the prisoners, the officer at the door turned towards him.

‘They've gone,' he said in a low voice. ‘From what they seemed to be saying amongst themselves, I gathered that they had come as friends of the others to warn them –' he nodded towards the room with the prisoners – ‘that something was afoot.'

‘Downing must have picked up the Regicides,' Faulkner remarked.

‘It seems so, because I distinctly heard a man say: “Perhaps it was the young Englishman who betrayed them and he and the woman have already gone.”'

‘It would be a timely irony if they thought that,' Faulkner said.

Something was certainly afoot because a day later more people assembled outside and once again the officers eavesdropped. There was some disturbance in the town, they gathered, and there were those who wished to break into the house until someone reminded them all that it belonged to a Mynheer Maarten de Vliet, a name that seemed to deter them from further action. Who or what Mynheer de Vliet was, Faulkner never knew, though knowing their landlord's name made the threat of his sudden appearance more of a reality. No-one apparently alerted de Vliet to the probability that his tenants had vanished, or at least not for the period that Faulkner and his associates occupied his premises.

‘He probably resides in Amsterdam,' one of his companions advised him unconcernedly. ‘Or perhaps Sir George has rendered him inactive with a sweetener of King Charles's gold.'

After that they continued to watch the dust fall by day and listen to the mice at night. In the event, it was four days before a man the Anglo-Dutch officers knew as Captain Armerer arrived with a letter signed
Nebuchadnezzar
.

After withdrawing with Armerer out of his prisoners' hearing, Faulkner read Downing's letter. Although Sir George said nothing of his other victims, it was implicit that although he had succeeded in securing the Regicides, this had been far from easy. Faulkner was ordered to ‘accompany the bearer of this letter and discover in the port of Delft a craft capable of conveying the assembled cargo to the place of our disembarkation'. He was to charter such a craft – ‘the suitability of which I leave to your charge' – and follow Armerer's directions as to where it was to lie to embark its reluctant passengers. His own prisoners were by that time to be confined on board.

Having read Downing's missive, Faulkner looked at Armerer. ‘Do you know the contents of this letter?' he asked.

Armerer nodded. ‘I am jointly responsible with you for getting these people aboard your man-of-war.' His English was so perfect that Faulkner concluded he too was English-born, a dispossessed cavalier, perhaps, who had wound up in the Dutch service and settled here with a buxom and satisfactory Dutch wife.

Faulkner nodded. ‘Have you any idea of a merchant house willing to charter me a suitable vessel, or is that a test of my own initiative?'

‘I have the money,' Armerer replied. ‘As for the knowledge of who to approach …' He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

‘It strikes me that this is unplanned. I had wondered how the miracle was to be conjured. Tell me, what has transpired with the others?'

‘Kick and Miles met in the Oude Kerke and made the necessary arrangements while Downing was at The Hague. He managed to wrest an arrest warrant out of the Stadtholder – do not ask me how he did it but your use of the word miracle is not inapt, though I think he concealed his victims' whereabouts to frustrate any later complications. The three Regicides were at Kick's own house in the Nieuwe Langendijk where they had been drinking beer and smoking their pipes. Corbet was on the point of leaving his companions; they had his lantern prepared when Downing and his men, Miles, Kick, myself and a number of other English officers arrived. Downing served the warrant and restrained the three men in irons, but could only get them into the Steen, the prison within the Rathaus …'

‘
What
?' Faulkner showed his surprise. This rodomontade indicated an unravelling of catastrophic proportion. ‘This is a repeat of the Dendy fiasco,' he said curtly.

‘Certainly the diplomatic consequences may be profound,' Armerer agreed. ‘Already, the local magistrates view the affair as breaching the integrity of Dutch sovereignty. Downing is obliged to keep a constant watch on the prisoners, consisting of his own servants. Several of the burgers, having visited the men in their cells, have got up petitions on their behalf. There have been some disturbances in the city …'

‘Yes, we heard something of that. But surely we now have a stalemate.' Faulkner's tone was one of disappointment, if not desperation. His own family was one thing, but he was unwilling to lend himself to so egregious an act as springing the Regicides from a Dutch city gaol.

Armerer shrugged his shoulders again. ‘I will give Sir George Downing the laurels for his audacity. Despite the burgers' protests to The Hague, he himself secured an order to the Bailiff of Delft from the hand of de Witt himself …'

‘The Stadtholder?' Faulkner could hardly believe what he was hearing.

‘So I understand. The Bailiff is now compelled to handover the indicted men. The Stadtholder, or one of his secretaries at the very least, out-flanked the magistrates. Now Downing, having spread more gold than I can carry in my hat and both saddle-bags, is ready to move, while the Bailiff fears a riot if he does so. Ergo, sir, you and I must conjure a vessel, bring it to the narrow canal behind the Rathaus and – abracadabra – the deed is done.'

‘Abracadabra indeed …' Faulkner, his mind in a whirl, considered the state of affairs. Clearly, he could not alter what Downing had done, howsoever he reprobated it. He dismissed the horrid implications of the night's work and made up his mind. The sooner he did what was required, the better their chances of extricating themselves. He nodded to Armerer. ‘Thank you for your candour. Let us make ourselves less martial. We have three or four hours before darkness, by which time my eye and your Dutch must have secured us a suitable craft. Come, I must inform your companions.'

Fifteen minutes later Faulkner and Armerer were casually walking along the quayside. The sensation of suppressed action troubled Faulkner's belly; he found the lax deception difficult to accomplish, but fell in step with Armerer who had the knack of pretence. Faulkner concluded that such insouciance must be one consequence of mercenary service, for Armerer and his Anglo-English colleagues had been exemplary in their obedience and efficiency.

A number of small vessels lay alongside the quay, several desultorily working cargo. They were all single-masted and cutter-rigged, broad of beam, bluff of bow and stern, with massively heavy leeboards on either side. Gay pendants flew from their thick masts, their huge rudders curled over their sterns, often decorated with carved heads of mythical beasts and long, curling tillers. Some of their stem-posts were curved, others straight and raked. Most were well cared for with thickly rosined timbers and gaily painted iron-work. They each betrayed their origins and their purpose by their build, which the Dutch could interpret with far greater skill than Faulkner. His own cursory knowledge identified them imperfectly as
schuyts
,
tjalks
,
botters
, or
boiers
, though he knew they ran to a dozen types. What he was looking for was one which most closely resembled the Dutch yachts which, in a generous moment which would be sadly defiled by the present enterprise, the States General had given to the restored King Charles and his brother James, the Duke of York.

Towards the end of the quay lay a likely looking vessel. No-one was on deck but a curl of smoke rose from the chimney of the after cabin and a skylight showed a light was burning below. ‘That one,' he said pointing her out to his companion. ‘Do you go aboard and throw your gold about. Tell them there's an English gentleman and his family anxious to charter him. Half the money now …'

‘And half when we reach Harwich,' Armerer said a little testily. ‘You, I take it, are His Lordship.'

‘Not a Lord, Captain Armerer, but a common knight. The nobility of the gold will testify to my own proof.'

‘Ha!' Armerer grinned and made his way down the single, swaying gang-plank while Faulkner, watched by some curious by-standers and three or four boys, affected an air of nonchalance as best he could. He was far from feeling detached because it struck him that the King was spending his, Faulkner's, money. He was torn between a cool fury and admiration that the impecunious Charles had secured half the profits on the
Duchess of Albemarle
not least to fund this present, desperate and egregious act. Not only was Faulkner being made to pay for securing the Regicides for the King, but also his own wife and son too. It began to rain as he turned this notion over in his mind, but it did occur to him that such a payment might, if he could obtain audience with the King, buy Henry his freedom. He had not forgotten the terrifying words with which Major Miles had apprehended the foolish boy.

Armerer had boarded the Dutch vessel, causing a curious crew-member to apprehend him. Faulkner had watched him taken aft and disappear into the after cabin. A few minutes later he re-emerged, accompanied by a stocky man in baggy trousers, wooden clogs and a short blue jacket. Armerer indicated Faulkner's figure, and the man pulled a narrow-brimmed hat over his head, looked up at the clouds and hurried up the gang-plank. Faulkner had no doubt that this was the skipper. Armerer followed gingerly as the Dutchman approached him, uttering an incomprehensible torrent of a Dutch dialect which only afterwards Faulkner knew as Frisian, but which ended with the intelligible word ‘Koom' which was accompanied by a beckoning motion.

‘He wishes us to follow, to the house of his principal owner. He is the skipper and part-owner …'

‘Sir Christopher,' Faulkner muttered under his breath.

‘Sir Christopher,' Armerer added in a louder voice for the benefit of the idlers. Faulkner heard some unfavourable remarks about the English, and Armerer jerked his head with an air or urgency.

‘We are not popular in Delft, Sir Christopher,' he remarked somewhat archly. ‘Let us not tarry for fear they make two and two into four.'

They followed the skipper as he led them to a house some way back from the quay and a few moments later found themselves ushered into a comfortable parlour in which a man and a woman were sitting.

An exchange of greeting followed, and Faulkner learned that he was dealing with Jacobus Goedhart. The skipper had explained why he was troubling his partner, and Armerer answered a series of questions as to who wanted to charter the
tjalk
. Armerer's explanation was inventive enough, for Faulkner grasped much of it. He winced inwardly at the use of his real name, but Armerer's flourished use of his title had an impact, even on the stolid Dutch republican.