‘You do not! She is the Queen, man! People cannot wander in off the streets to pass the time of day with her. Besides, she has ladies in there, and the Court rakes are always trying to slip past me to get at them. It is quite a task to keep them out, I can tell you!’
Chaloner knew he could gain access to the Queen if he wanted. Fortunately for her, most people did not possess his particular array of talents — or a wife who was one of Her Majesty’s ladies-in-waiting, for that matter. Prudently, he changed the subject, and asked what happened when letters were delivered. Appleby explained that he handed all such missives to the Queen’s private secretary. Hyde opened everything she received, and although he claimed to stay out of her personal correspondence, it was a lie.
‘He likes to know what is going on in every aspect of her life,’ said Appleby disapprovingly. ‘I cannot bear the odious prig. He is worse than his father for overbearing manners.’
From what little he had seen of Hyde, Chaloner was inclined to concur.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Appleby asked, changing the subject abruptly. ‘About Proby?’
‘Peter Proby?’ asked Chaloner, recalling what he been told the previous day — that the Adventurers had been obliged to call an emergency meeting because Proby had disappeared.
‘He has been found,’ said Appleby. ‘Well, most of him has been found.’
Chaloner regarded him uneasily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He threw himself off the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, and landed with such force that parts of him have yet to be discovered. What is the world coming to, when such terrible things happen?’
‘What indeed?’ murmured Chaloner.
When he had finished with Appleby, Chaloner spent the rest of the morning and the first part of the afternoon questioning other members of the Queen’s household, but learned nothing he did not know already — that Her Majesty was unpopular, and so any number of people might have sent malicious letters to see her in trouble. It was a depressing state of affairs, and when he eventually left White Hall he was tired and dispirited.
His gloom intensified when he visited St James’s Fields, an area that had been open countryside at the Restoration, but that was now the domain of developers. There were several such sites in the city, but this was the nearest to Clarendon House. It did not take him long to realise that even if the Earl’s bricks were finding their way there, he would never prove it. Dozens of carts kept the workforce supplied with materials, from hundreds of different sources. Moreover, each house had been tendered out to a different builder, and it would take weeks — perhaps months — to track down the provenance of all their supplies.
He persisted, though, and the sun was setting when he was finally compelled to admit that he was wasting his time. As he walked along The Strand it occurred to him that he had not eaten all day, so he stopped to buy a meat pie from a street vendor. It was cold, greasy and filled with something he supposed might have once belonged to a cow, although he did not like to imagine what part. He ate it, then heartily wished he had not when it lay dense and heavy in his stomach.
Feeling the need to dislodge it with something hot, he went to his favourite coffee house — the Rainbow on Fleet Street — entering its steamy fug with relief after the chill of outside. Most of the regulars were there, enjoying a dish of the beverage that was currently very popular in London. He sat on a bench and listened to the chatter around him, breathing in deeply of the comfortingly familiar aroma of burned beans, pipe smoke and wet mud trampled in from the road.
‘What news?’ called Farr, the owner, voicing the usual coffee-house greeting.
‘The Portuguese ambassador enjoyed having dinner with the King,’ offered Chaloner, repeating what he had read in the newsbook earlier. No one looked very impressed, so he added, ‘Afterwards, he skipped all the way from White Hall to St Paul’s, and one member of the Privy Council was so impressed by his elegance that he has engaged him as a dancing master.’
He expected everyone to know he was being facetious, but Farr nodded sagely. ‘The Portuguese are a strange nation. I am not surprised that one of them knows how to gyrate over long distances.’
‘The Intelligencer did not report the prancing, though,’ said a young printer named Fabian Stedman, who spent so much time in the Rainbow that Chaloner wondered whether he had a home of his own — or a place of work, for that matter. ‘I do not know how it dares call itself a newsbook, because it never contains anything interesting.’
‘Well, what do you expect?’ asked the Rector of St Dunstan-in-the-West. Chaloner liked Joseph Thompson, a kindly, liberal man with a conscience. ‘The government is afraid that we will embark on another civil war if it tells us too much — this time to rid ourselves of King and Parliament, given that neither have proved themselves worthy to rule.’
‘There was a fascinating piece about a fish caught in the River Severn last week, though,’ said Farr. ‘Apparently, it was of great size and uncouth shape.’
‘Does that count as foreign news or domestic?’ mused Stedman. ‘The Severn is in Wales, which is a distant land full of heathens.’
‘Nonsense,’ argued Thompson. ‘I have been to Wales, and it is very nice.’
‘The farthest I have ever been is Chelsey,’ confided Farr. ‘And that was more than foreign enough for me! I was worried about being set on by footpads every inch of the way. Life is very dangerous outside the city.’
‘Have you ever travelled, Chaloner?’ asked Stedman. ‘You hold very controversial opinions, so I imagine you have. For example, you are always telling us that it is wrong to go to war with the Dutch, when the rest of the country cannot wait to start fighting.’
‘Hear, hear!’ cheered Farr. ‘I am thoroughly looking forward to trouncing the Hollanders at sea, and stealing all their trade routes.’
‘War with the Dutch is not a good idea,’ said Chaloner tiredly. He had lost count of the times he had tried to explain the reality of the situation to them. ‘They have faster ships, better-trained sailors, and mountains of materiel that will allow them to stay at sea for months. We do not.’
‘He is right,’ agreed Thompson. ‘Fighting Hollanders would be madness. Besides, they are a Protestant nation that was kind to the King when he was in exile. What purpose will conflict serve?’
‘They are taking slaves from Africa to work on their sugar plantations,’ argued Farr. ‘When we defeat them, we can do it instead, so we shall have cheap sugar — as much as we can eat.’
‘Excellent!’ declared Stedman. ‘Coffee is a lot nicer with sugar.’
Chaloner wondered whether that was why he had yet to acquire a taste for coffee: he did not use sugar, as a silent protest against the plantations. He knew his self-denial made no difference to the slaves, and it was impossible to avoid sugar in all its forms, but he persisted anyway.
‘The slave trade is a vicious, despicable business, and any good Christian should agree with me,’ declared Thompson, uncharacteristically vehement. ‘It is evil.’
‘It is a matter of commerce,’ argued Farr. ‘We need affordable sugar, and slaves are the best way to get it. Morality has nothing to do with-’
‘Of course it does!’ cried Thompson. ‘How can you condone snatching men, women and children from their homes, and forcing them to work for no pay, just so you can have sweet coffee?’
‘If I were an African, I would accept it as my lot,’ declared Farr. ‘The wealthy and powerful have always dominated the weak. God made us that way.’
‘He most certainly did not,’ yelled Thompson, outraged. ‘And if you ever say such a wicked thing again, I will … I will … well, I do not know what I shall do, but you will be sorry.’
Everyone stared at him. Thompson had never lost his temper with Farr before.