The Whispering Swarm (59 page)

‘It'll be thinner until we're closer to the city, where the water slows,' whispered Duval in answer to my question. ‘Best go carefully until we near Temple Stairs. The river bends fair sharp at that point and you should see it easily. That's where the main Frost Fair's built.'

‘I'm still surprised they let it run today,' I said. ‘Those people seem to hate any sort of festival.'

Duval smiled. ‘Puritans are hypocrites. They love Mammon better than God. They cannot admit it so are forever confused, thus forever insistent! I blame King James.'

‘How are Puritans his fault?'

‘He commissioned the Bible into English, so now any man can pick through it to find justification for his sins, whether it be murder, theft or adultery. Ordinary people are unqualified. True, the commandments of Moses are published there, but so are the deeds of earlier and later great prophets, giving other views, all of which they say come from God!'

‘Are you an atheist, Captain Duval?' I was amused.

‘On the contrary, sir, I am a good Catholic and oppose the dissemination of that holy book in the common tongue. This is the result. Chaos, sir! Any man may now give his own interpretation and, as we see, even do regicide in God's name.'

Jemmy, always laughing, snorted derision. ‘As the pope has done for centuries, eh?'

With the sigh of a man weighed down by the words of fools, Duval ignored his friend. ‘If we're separated, we make for Whitefriars Old Stairs and meet there. If there's a fog, we wait for Master Moorcock here to lead us through it.'

‘What? I'm no expert in negotiating fog.'

‘There are fogs and fogs. I'm told the roads are visible to you.'

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. ‘The roads?'

He became a little exasperated. ‘The Roads Invisible! The Silver Roads!'

‘I can see them and you cannot?' I was bewildered.

‘Precisely,' said Nevison, seeking calm between us. ‘You are blessed with what we used to call “witch sight” in Kent when I was a lad. You can see what they call fairy pathways. Not so?'

‘Possibly.' I was more than a little bit nervous now. ‘Is that what they are?' Did he mean the familiar streets by which I reached the Alsacia from my world?

I was uneasy now that Prince Rupert no longer led us. Still, Duval was a resourceful man, no doubt even better at avoiding pursuers than the prince. I could have a worse captain.

We slung our muskets over our shoulders and prepared to follow Duval down the ladder. He called up softly, ‘The ice is holding but it's a little thin. Be careful where you step.' He walked away from the ladder looking up at the steep sides of the dock. ‘We'd best stay as wide apart as makes sense. My guess is the ice will improve for us in a matter of yards.'

Nevison went next and warily joined his leader on the ice. I followed. Jemmy was behind me.

As I reached the ice and walked cautiously towards Duval I heard voices above. A single pistol shot told me all I needed. We had been discovered!

A moment later Jemmy's lifeless body came hurtling down to smash into groaning ice which splintered at the edges. Duval crossed himself and quickly unslung his musket, dispensing with his monopod and firing from his hip upwards at the first Roundhead face that looked over the edge. The man collapsed with a ball in him but did not fall on us. Duval was hissing orders, insisting we leave Jemmy for dead and escape. With some reluctance I obeyed. I wanted to vomit. Cheerful Jemmy was the first of our company actually to die. There was no doubt that here, unlike in the Alsacia, he was decidedly and horribly dead. In the fading light a great scarlet stain spread across the littered ice, and his head lay at a horrible angle.

Another soldier peered over the edge. Nevison shot this time and the head dropped back. I fumbled with the lock of my musket. Duval's hand pulled me faster. I heard a few more shots. Men talked urgently amongst themselves. I prayed that Prince Rupert himself wasn't dead.

 

49

THE FALL OF THE AXE

That was my first prayer addressed to a God I still barely believed in. The exhortation was certainly fervent. In another second I had turned and followed Duval out onto the ice, hoping Prince Rupert had detected the soldiers and hidden. The highwayman was expertly reloading his musket as he ran. Had he seen the prince? He shook his head.

I was anxious to put the big solid beams of the dock between myself and our pursuers. ‘Jemmy's gone!' I told Nevison. My stomach was no longer churning. Everything was frozen. Emotionally and physically. As was our world. On the day a tyrant was made answerable to his people, the world was set on a very different course. The idea of the modern democratic republic was born. I nearly died on the ice of the River Thames as a crimson sun dropped below the horizon and suddenly it grew very cold indeed.

A few stars still lit that sharp blue-black sky now invaded by roiling, ebony thunderclouds. Solid as slate, their blackness filled the horizon. Lightning silently flashed from sky to earth, from cloud to cloud. I heard a hurdy-gurdy. Fiddles. Drums. A fife. Singing. And still the Whispering Swarm. Lamps and rush brands and tar-sticks blazed along both banks of the river. To my right, near the Lambeth side, mummers wearing scarlet conical caps in mockery of the Spanish Inquisition roasted an ox. Judging by his still-blazing rags, they'd dressed the ox as a bishop before offering him to the flames. The Puritans and the common people shared many opinions. Thus it was easy for Parliament to forgive a pasquinade or two when the targets were so frequently the same.

So the fair flourished as in the distance Captain Marvell and his redcoats ran rapidly up from behind, the troopers more recognisable in their uniforms than we in our homespun. The world was transformed to lunar silver, bringing a certain lightheadedness to London, even perhaps a sense of relief that the execution was done. Or did we simply witness bravado in the face of coming calamity?

Turning his puzzled head to look at me, Duval's face was half-obscured by those strangely solid shadows created by heavy clouds drifting across the sinking sun. In spite of his mismatched collection of disguises he still managed to look like a true romantic swashbuckler, his hat pinned back and his hair blowing wild. Before him the Frost Fair came to life with its fluttering coloured lanterns and blazing torches guttering in the growling wind. At that moment the place seemed a paradise in which we might lose our pursuers. Save for the constant noise of the Whispering Swarm.

Then a bell began to toll.

The sonorous sound was taken up on both sides of the river. Every church bell in London swung to tell Christendom that the divine right of kings was challenged by the commons. From that moment no tyrant would sit so easily upon a throne.

I looked back. On the far bank driftwood and seacoal fueled thousands of filthy fires lit against the cold. The night was murky as the wind tossed the heavy smoke back and forth. Demonic shapes writhed against the shadowed sky. Very dimly I made out the figures of three men, conventionally dressed in cloaks and broad-brimmed hats. They led a fairly large troop of redcoat infantry. Could they be St Claire-turned-Marvell and his two cronies? For a moment the wind brought a touch of sweetness from the fair. Duval and Nevison thumped on ahead of me. I hurried to catch up. We were down to two muskets. I was useless with mine; I gave it to Nevison.

Then the fair hit us, washing over us like a welcome wave. The smells alone made me feel drunk. No time to mourn Jemmy yet. In relief we revelled in the change, everyone plunging into that melange of merrymaking. They seemed already aware how little there would be to be merry about in England for the next decade or so. To me this was a reasonable price to pay for Milton. Most artists are part-time Puritans no matter how many wives or lovers they discard on their selfish way through life. But these Puritans were of a rather narrow persuasion, substituting obstinacy for reason. For a while they prevailed. Their bullets had already killed one of us and could easily kill the others.

As the old king's reality gave way to the new democracy, I knew I was experiencing the last of the mediaeval Frost Fairs. It embraced me with its hot, greasy sweet smells and its bright cheap colours. All around me Londoners restored their spirits and senses with rosewater ice and lavender tea. What remained of London's wealth was spread out before us. The stalls were piled with sweetmeats and sausages. Pies of every kind. There were gaming rings and shellfish stands and stalls selling beer or hot wine. Pathways of ash and sawdust were ground into the ice. Here and there a boardwalk supported spectators at a bear-baiting or a cockfight or a group of mummers playing out the topic of the day. King Charles had lost his head to a repentant Cromwell and broadsheets were already being sung to the hornpipe and drum.

This day in sixteen forty nine

Cromwell ended Charles's reign

And Citizens now we all are named

Since Subject's in the Royal Vein!

And ‘tis to his Eternal Shame

That Regicide brings Cromwell Fame!

I looked back. Here came the implacable Puritans with pikes and muskets at the ready, shouldering their way through the celebrants, and thus making better time than we could. We dared not risk a shot at them. The fair was full of children brought to take their parents' minds off an event they did not care to consider. A day to overawe and make one afraid. A day when responsibility passed from crown to commons. Never again would a British sovereign selfishly imperil their subjects or the security of their realm. The first steps to full adult suffrage had been taken.
Tyrannicide
: the precedent was now established in law. The stage was set. Even those active in securing it would hardly believe what they had created. Another fifty years and Newton would offer his wonderful unifying discoveries to make the modern world. A day to celebrate.

A battered old coach appeared from the Lambeth side, dragged from some scrapyard, daubed with yellow paint, its wheels replaced with planks, it was pulled by sliding boys, sharp nails sticking from their clogs. For a while the contraption hid the Puritans' side from ours, giving us a moment to regroup and catch our breath. The image of Jemmy falling facedown in Scotland Dock came back to me and I smelled blood for a moment. Shock? Most likely it came from a slaughtered sheep whose brothers I could hear bleating wildly a few feet away. Another drum roll against the earlier rhythm and for a short while there was cacophony as we straightened up and continued our race through the fair.

We passed another stage where Italian comedians acted out the same scene, already titled
The Martyrdom of King Charles of England with Harlequin Cromwell, Columbine King Charles and Pierrot Executioner.
Another troupe of English mummers in motley pranced expertly across the frozen river, avoiding the hubbles of small hillocks in the ice. They performed their version of the play for the first and last time. It would die with their company.

Little boys on wooden trays zipped past us to right and left; little girls whipped their parents' servants as, pretend horses, they galloped cheerfully along with the mob. The dark, distant clouds massed like a besieging army preparing a final overwhelming charge. I was filled with dread. The tolling bells might be booming a melancholy triumph for England. One implacable idea had met another. Past had clashed with future. The result had been the greatest blood bath England ever knew in a millennium of warfare.

Charles was killed to ensure kings and queens would never again be responsible for setting common folk against one another. We passed from a virtual dictatorship to a democratic republic. Once we sampled it, we never lost the taste for it.

Mourning great-hearted Jemmy, I was filled with sadness. For a while my melancholy even made me forget my fear.

I saw a flame puff gold, briefly lighting the face of a redcoat musketeer. A ball rushed past me.

Someone cheered.

A new era came with the fall of the axe. The bells of the city continued slowly tolling, from Bow to Temple Bar; from the Old Bailey to St George's to St James's; to St Mary's to Shoreditch and St Odhran's. Mourning for a Stuart king. And even Cromwell not willing to stop them.

If God did in fact control our fate, then the pious Charles and the equally pious Cromwell should have been in no doubt as to God's opinion. And now, after so many English men, women and children had died in that bloody conflict, Cromwell was reconciled to this course of action. He knew it would cost him many moderates, even among his own generals, and possibly lose him the republic he came increasingly to wish for. So those bells did not simply ring for the death of an intemperate king, they rang for the death of Parliament's most cherished dream, which would have to go to colonial America and wait over a century to return to its roots. To England.

Another tremendous crack of lightning pierced the scene and seemed to threaten the end of the world, bringing everything to a sudden stillness. Even the bells stopped their relentless ringing. Silence.

There on the ice, hunted as we were, we stopped and took off our hats, bowing to the memory of that poor, proud Stuart king. Had there been any sorrow in him for the thousands upon thousands killed, raped, impoverished by his insistence? And what had he meant when he asked us to ‘
remember
'? Remember what? That he was an honourable man, in spite of his bad faith in reneging so frequently on his word to Parliamentarians who believed profoundly in keeping an oath given in God's name?

For a little while the soft, uncertain silence continued to fall across the fair. Few moved or spoke at that moment. Every small sound seemed like an offence. Then the bells began to ring again as if in a mingling of fear and joy as London wondered at the repercussions of its heavy deed.

Without thinking, I drew back into the crowd again. My calves ached horribly as my feet tried to keep their grip on the smeared filth of the ice. Distant reports of the muskets were drowned by the sound of another hurdy-gurdy, its handle turned by a man dressed as a somewhat cankerous ape. A smaller ape danced on his shoulder. A couple of drunken merrymakers fell against me, apologising. I caught the smell of deliciously sweetened meat and hard-baked pies. All of it carried favourite memories of childhood, of my uncle Alf taking us up to Hampstead Heath for the Whitsun fair or to Mitcham at Easter when we would stay at my auntie Di's and buy fish and chips from the truck that followed the fairs when not serving holiday-makers at Butlin's. Tastiest fish and chips in the world. (He sieved the cooking fat to fuel the van so you could smell his coming and his going). This seventeenth-century variety wasn't so different except the potato was not yet universal and fried trout and mackerel was sold with bread or pastry. The smells were similar. Fat. Flour. Sugar. The shrieks of pleasure were no different. The wailing overtired cries and quarrels were the same. Only the celebration itself was different.