There was a silence in the room as he finished speaking, and I sat there transfixed by his tale. Truly, I had not imagined anything so shocking. The failure of Sir George’s rising I knew about, of course, but I never dreamed that his collapse had been caused by treachery. Nor did I suspect this was the crime of which my father was accused. Had he been responsible, then I would have hanged him myself. But I had not yet heard anything to suggest that he was guilty.
“We did not rush to accuse anyone,” Mordaunt continued when I put this to him. “And your father led the campaign to uncover the man responsible. His indignation and outrage were terrifying to behold. And yet it appeared this was duplicity; eventually we received documents from within the government which indicated without a shadow of doubt that the traitor was your father. When he was confronted with the evidence in early 1660, he fled abroad.”
“The matter was never resolved, then?” I said. “He did not have the chance of rebutting the charges properly.”
“He would have had every chance, had he stayed in England,” Mordaunt replied, frowning at the hint of skepticism in my voice. “But the documents, I think, were unanswerable. There was letter after letter in a cipher only he used; notes of meetings with high officials in the government in which conversations were recorded, and containing information he alone could have possessed. Notes of payment…”
“No!” I all but shouted. “That I will not believe. You tell me, you dare to say, that my father sold his friends for money?”
“I tell you what is there, plain to see,” Mordaunt said severely, and I knew that I had overstepped the bounds of propriety. His favor now hung on the thinnest of threads, and I made haste to apologize for my incivility.
“But the main accusation against him came from the government? You believed that?”
“Government papers, but not from the government. John Thurloe was not the only person to have spies.”
“It never occurred to you the papers might have come to you deliberately? To point the finger of accusation at the wrong person and sow dissent?”
“Of course it did,” he said tartly, and I could see that I was beginning to weary him. “We were extremely cautious. And if you do not believe me, you should also go and see other associates of his, and they will tell you honestly what they know as well.”
“I will do so. Where would I find these people?”
Lord Mordaunt looked at me disapprovingly. “You do need help. London, boy. Or rather, considering the time of year, Tunbridge Wells. Where they are jockeying for position like everyone else.”
“And can I come and see you again?”
“No. What is more, I do not want it known that you have been here. I suggest that you conduct yourself with discretion and be careful with whom you talk; this is still a delicate matter, which men remember with bitterness. I do not wish it known that I have helped you in picking at old wounds best forgotten. It is only because of my memory of what I thought your father was, that I have even talked to you today. And I want something in return.”
“Anything in my power.”
“I believe your father was guilty of a monstrous crime. If you find any evidence suggesting I am wrong, you will tell me of it instantly, and I will do everything in my power to help.”
I nodded.
“And if you agree that my conclusions were correct, you will tell me of that as well. Then I can rest peacefully. I am haunted by the possibility that a good man may have been unjustly accused. If you can be persuaded of his guilt, then I will accept it. If not…”
“What?”
“Then a good man has suffered, and a guilty one has gone free. That is an evil, which must be corrected.”
5
The journey to Tunbridge wells took me four days as I skirted round London rather than go through it, and I did not begrudge a moment of the time even though I was keen to make swift progress. The nights were still warm, and the solitude filled my heart with a tranquillity that I had scarcely known before. I thought a great deal of what Mor-daunt had said, and realized that I had made progress—I knew what my father was accused of doing, and I knew how the accusations were put abroad. Forged papers, coming from within Thurloe’s office; finding them would now be part of my quest. More than this, however, I knew that a traitor, well-placed and well-informed, had indeed existed; if it was not my father, the number of people it might be was small—only a handful of trusted men could have betrayed the rising of 1659 so very comprehensively. I had seen his face in old Blundy’s saucer of water; now I had to discover his name. I knew how it was done and why; with good fortune I would also discover who.
I could have fallen into company, as many people were on the move, but I shunned all attempts to draw me into companionship, sleeping alone in woods at night wrapped in my blanket and buying such food as I wanted in the villages and small towns I passed through. That solitary mood passed only when I came to the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells itself, and noted the bustle of coaches and carriages, the neverending trails of wagons taking produce in to keep the courtiers supplied with their needs, the growing numbers of itinerant peddlers, musicians and servants, heading there in the hope of squeezing some money for themselves by selling their wares. In the last two days I did have a companion despite myself, as a young whore called Kitty attached herself to me, offering her services in exchange for protection. She was coming from London and had been attacked the day before, and did not want the experience repeated. She had been lucky that first time, as no visible damage was done beyond some bruises, but she was frightened. Had she lost her tooth, or broken a nose, her earnings would have suffered badly, and she had no other trade to fall back on.
I agreed to protect her because the creature had a strange fascination; for a country boy like myself, such a phantasm of city corruption had never come into view before. She was not what the lurid tales had led me to expect; indeed she was very much more correct than many fine ladies I met in later life and, I suspect, no less virtuous. She was about the same age as me, a soldier’s bastard abandoned by the mother for fear of chastisement. How she’d been brought up I do not know, but she was wiser and more cunning for it. She had no notion of honesty whatsoever, and all her morality lay in her obligations—help her and hers and she would owe. Hurt, and she would hurt back. That was her entire moral universe and what it lacked in Christianity, it more than made up in practicality. It was at least a code she could keep to, simple as it was.
I should say that I did not partake of what she had to offer the night before we arrived in Tunbridge Wells; fear of the clap and a heaviness of mind about what I was to do the next day took away my appetites; but we fed, talked and later fell asleep under the same blanket and, though she made fun of me, I think she was quite happy that it was so. We parted on good terms outside the town, with me hanging back for fear of being seen in her company.
Like my father, I have never been a man for courts or courtly ways; indeed, I have always avoided the taint of corruption that goes along with such association. Although I am no Puritan, there is a level of decency which a gentleman should maintain, and the court in those days had quickly abandoned any pretense at the sturdy values which make any country fit to live in. Tunbridge Wells shocked me beyond measure. I was quite prepared (for rumors were spreading thick and fast by then) to find the ladies of the court unmasked in public and even sporting wigs and perfume and makeup; I was appalled to discover that the Horseguards were wearing them as well.