Their reign was threatened by the election of Walter Stanford to office. Whatever his weaknesses, the mercer had tremendous acumen and a nose for any mismanagement. Under his surveillance, the corruption would not only have to cease but its extent during the previous mayoralty would have been uncovered. Ashway and Kenyon were left with only one option. Stanford had to be stopped.
‘And so they killed Michael,’ he said. ‘Because so much of me was invested in my nephew, they hoped that my grief would rob me of the urge to go on.’ He looked at Nicholas. ‘How was it done, Master Bracewell?’
‘The murder was committed in that house on the Bridge,’ said the other. ‘I was deceived for a while when I learnt that it was owned by Sir Lucas Pugsley. It was borrowed from him by Alderman Ashway for the purpose. Though the murder happened by daylight, the body was not disposed of until night. Under the cover of darkness, it was dropped out of the window but it struck the starling on its way to the water.’
‘The smashed leg!’ said Stanford.
‘Yes, sir. It must have been caught in the eddies then buoyed up by a piece of driftwood that carried it downstream. By complete chance, we encountered it.’
‘You and your waterman.’
‘Abel Strudwick. A sound man with all his faults.’
‘One question, sir. Why was my nephew’s face so mangled and bloody? We could scarce recognise him.’
‘That was the intention.’
‘What say you?’
‘It was not your nephew, sir.’
‘Not? But William and I saw him.’
‘You saw only what looked like him,’ explained the other. ‘Michael Delahaye is still alive.’
‘But that does not make sense.’
When Nicholas enlarged on his claim, Walter Stanford was forced to accept that it was all too logical. The army surgeon had told the book holder everything. Michael Delahaye was not just another grumbling soldier, he was a complete dissolute who resented his uncle for cutting short his strenuous overindulgence. Joining the army in order to prolong his wasteful ways, the soldier had found it so intolerable and depressing that it had turned a merry gentleman into a malevolent one. Walter Stanford became the target for that malevolence. When Michael Delahaye was offered a chance to strike back at his uncle, he seized it because it gave him the opportunity to escape for ever from the oppression of respectability and start a new life of debauchery under a new name. It also gave him the supreme satisfaction of killing off the mortal enemy he had made in the army.
Cold silence had fallen on Stanford as he listened. To lose a loving nephew was one form of misery. To learn that he was the object of that same person’s hate was far worse. The one saving grace was that the whole plot had been exposed by a man of such evident discretion.
‘What must I do, Master Bracewell?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘But they will flee the approach of justice.’
‘Only if you frighten them away,’ said Nicholas. ‘We must tempt your nephew out of hiding or this will never be settled. Be ruled by me, sir. Prepare yourself for action but take none yet. Wait but a little while and they will surely strike again. Be patient.’
Stanford thought it over and nodded his agreement. He was deeply disturbed by what he had heard and he needed time to assimilate it all. What really cut him to the quick was the news about Michael Delahaye and he did not try to shuffle off his responsibility in the matter. His intentions had been good but he had applied intense pressure to his nephew to get him to conform and to abandon his wilder ways. He had helped to turn an idle but relatively harmless young man into a monster and it preyed on him. Having been through one grim ordeal, he now faced an even more punitive one.
‘What am I to tell my sister?’ he asked.
‘What she needs to know.’
‘She believes her son was hauled out of the river.’
‘Then that is what happened, sir,’ said Nicholas levelly. ‘There is no need for her to learn the full truth. The son whom she loved and knew died in the Netherlands. Do not bring him back to torment her.’
Once again, Stanford accepted sage advice and looked across at the other with increased respect. Nicholas clearly had to be given some freedom where the stage-management of everything was concerned. He would know how to flush the villains out of their holes.
‘When will they strike?’ said Stanford.
‘Soon.’
‘How soon?’
‘At the Lord Mayor’s Show.’
Chapter Twelve
Ridings were an integral part of life in the capital. The processions were not merely a source of entertainment and wonder for the commonalty but a means of impressing upon them the dignity and power of their rulers. In medieval times, the most splendid processions were those on royal occasions, especially a coronation or a wedding. By the later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, however, the Lord Mayor’s Show had come to rival even these, taking the whole city as its stage and encompassing traditions that went back to the very origin of old London town. The Show had now completely taken over from the Midsummer Marching Watch as the main civic annual parade and nobody dared to miss it. Ridings meant public holidays when people could enjoy a dazzling spectacle then go off to celebrate what they had seen in general merry-making.
Extra soldiers and constables were on duty as a result of the recent riot but nobody expected that there would be any real troubles. A Lord Mayor’s Show did not stir up apprentices to attack the immigrant craftsmen of Southwark. It was an attestation of civil power in a city that was nominally ruled by a sovereign, a shared belief that London was the most eminent place in Europe, a time when the whole populace was bathed in feelings of pride and identity and well-being. Walter Stanford was known to be exceptionally keen on civic tradition. The Show which carried him into office promised to be an outstanding one.
Some wanted to make it more memorable still.
‘Everything turns on today,’ said Rowland Ashway.
Aubrey Kenyon nodded. ‘We must not lose our nerves.’
‘Indeed, sir, or we are like to lose our heads.’
‘Hopefully, that might be Stanford’s fate.’
‘It has to be, Aubrey, or we are undone.’
They were talking in Kenyon’s house before going out to take up their places in the procession. The aldermanic robes made Ashway look fatter and more florid than ever whereas the Chamberlain’s stateliness was enhanced by his regalia. They looked an ill-matched pair but they were yoked together in crime now and depended critically upon each other. There was someone else upon whom they relied.
‘Can he be trusted to do his office?’ said Kenyon.
‘Nobody is more eager to perform it.’
‘He let us down at Richmond.’
‘That was the fault of Firk,’ sneered Ashway. ‘He hanged the wrong man and fell foul of that book holder. Did he but know it, Master Bracewell did us a favour. He killed off Firk and saved us the trouble of doing it ourselves. Delahaye is another kind of man again.’
‘Renfrew,’ said the other. ‘He likes to be called James Renfrew. Lieutenant Delahaye is dead.’
‘So will this Captain James Renfrew be in time,’ said Ashway quietly. ‘When he has done what we have paid him for, we must finish him off as well. He knows too much, Aubrey. It is the only way.’
‘And today?’
‘We must put our faith in his madness.’
‘He hates Stanford even more than we do.’