A Plague of Sinners by Paul Lawrence

Author:Paul Lawrence [Paul Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749015725
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

OF AMBASSADORS OR MESSENGERS

For if he be in the tenth, and there dignified essentially, the ambassador will stand too much upon the honour of his own prince, and has an overweening conceit of his own abilities.

It was a strange experience travelling this road I once walked every day. I had not passed through the Lion’s Gate for more than a year. The familiar surrounds stirred residual feelings of dread, the prospect of another tedious day sorting old records. Whilst I had not actually been a prisoner here, still I thought of the Tower as my jail. I had been a clerk, working for the formidable William Prynne, he of cropped ears and the letters ‘S. L.’ branded into his face. He still lurked here, I assumed, somewhere within the walls of the Wakefield Tower.

Familiar yet different. In my time the guards and the soldiers were aimless and slovenly, often drunk and never diligent. Today though they presented smart and correct, every item of their dress pristine. Sentries checked our credentials with extraordinary diligence at the Bulwark Gate, the Lion’s Gate and the Byward Tower. Sir John Robinson, now commander of the Tower guard, was reckoned to be a fastidious tyrant with little tolerance for indiscipline or disorder.

‘Where is Newcourt?’ Dowling asked a guard beneath the Bloody Tower. ‘We hear he is come to meet Sir John.’

The guard jerked a thumb in the direction of the White Tower without saying a word nor moving a muscle of his face. I thought I recognised him, though it was difficult to be certain. They all appeared so elegant and clean.

I spotted Newcourt straightaway, lean and lithe, stood bowed with feet together in obsequious pose afront of an older-looking gentleman with stern eyes and imposing bulk. Sir John Robinson spoke with great intensity, chopping at the air with his arms and pointing at Newcourt’s chest, while the younger man nodded so hard I feared his head might fall off. Robinson finished his performance with a final flurry of barked instruction before marching off in the direction of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings.

‘Mr Newcourt!’ I called.

‘What do you want?’ he scowled, glaring miserably at the floor.

‘Lord Arlington said we should come to you if we need help or resource,’ I reminded him. ‘We are in need of both.’

Newcourt rubbed his hand across the surface of his pristine wig. ‘I have to go to Hampton Court,’ he muttered, hurrying back towards the Byward Tower.

Dowling clamped a giant paw upon his shoulder and pulled him back. ‘Will you listen to our request?’

Newcourt made a discreet attempt to free himself afore turning back. A faint tremble of his lips belied his anger and frustration. ‘Tell me quick,’ he snapped. ‘I am busy.’

‘We need money, but more important we need protection,’ I told him. ‘Men are trying to kill us.’

He dug into his jacket. ‘How much money do you need?’

‘I have spent nearly two pounds already,’ I said. ‘In less than a week.’

He pulled out some coins. ‘Here is a pound, thereabouts.

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