Continent — even published in Dutch! Royalists are crowing with delight, naturally…'
'But it is most certainly not by a Royalist,' Gideon murmured. He had brought his copy. It was a long tract, but he had read it carefully. As Thurloe brooded, Gideon quoted: 'To Tour Highness justly belongs the honour of dying for the people… Religion will be restored, Liberty asserted, and Parliaments have those Privileges they have fought for…'
Thurloe angrily took up the bile: ' 'In the Black Catalogue of High Malefactors, few can be found that have lived more to the affliction and disturbance of Mankind…' This is slander and treason! It asks whether His Highness be a tyrant and if so, whether it be lawful — or profitable to the Commonwealth to do justice upon him? It means by killing him. It pretends that His Highness has put himself above the law, therefore should not have the law's protection.'
'Do you know where this has come from?' Gideon asked.
Thurloe summarised angrily: 'We were alerted to several Dutch vessels in the port of London. Colonel Barkstead learned that prohibited goods had been concealed in houses near the river. Barkstead ordered a search. At the house of Samuel Rogers, a distiller of strong- waters in St Katharine's Dock, he seized seven parcels of books, two hundred to each parcel. Rogers of course claimed no knowledge. When a watch was set secretly on his house, however, lo! There appears one Edward Wroughton — a man already known to us for distributing scandalous literature in Swan Alley'
'Coleman Street?'
'You know it?'
'By reputation,' agreed Gideon, with a smile.
'Fifth Monarchy' snarled Thurloe briefly. 'Venner's group. Your Okey is one — '
'Not my Okey!' Knowing that John Okey had recently only narrowly escaped a treason charge for involvement with the Fifth Monarchists, Gideon quickly distanced himself.
'Wroughton demanded to see an arrest warrant. These people are practised; he pointed out that the warrant specified the assistance of a constable. Barkstead's customs officer was compelled to send for one. Wroughton went along peacefully, but when they got him to the Tower Gate he suddenly broke free and they had to chase him all the way to Galley Quay'
'Was Wroughton working for himself?'
'He was in league with John Sturgeon.'
'Arrested too?'
'Officers recognised Sturgeon in East Smithfield, carrying yet more bundles. They had paper wrapped about them, and were tied up with pack- thread, but the paper was loose and ruffled up, so the book titles were visible. The officers took from Sturgeon a pocket pistol' — Thurloe riffled through the examination papers — ' 'which he had in a money- bag, a weapon with four barrels in the stock, being all charged and ready for execution.' He gave a false name, and has since refused to co- operate. 'Asked, whether or not he hath delivered any such books to Edward Wroughton? He saith, he will not answer to that, nor any other questions that shall be asked of him — though it be whether two and two make four'…' Thurloe continued reading, with a startled expression, as if he had just noticed a postscript: 'Barkstead is so concerned he has asked for a back-dated warrant for Wroughton — lest he escape on a technicality!'
He looked up. He gazed for a moment at Gideon. 'And you have anxieties, Captain Jukes?'
This was Gideon's cue: 'I do not believe this well-penned piece, Killing no Murder, comes from William Allen. Edward Sexby wrote it.'
Thurloe started. 'It is Sexby's style?'
'Machiavelli peppering Scriptures and illustrations from the ancient Romans, like Jamaica spices mixed in a mortar. He cites not only Francis Bacon, but — cheekily — your own Secretary of Tongues, Mr John Milton! This is well-argued, thoughtful, sustained work. Twenty pages as good as anything Nedham produces for you — Gideon noticed Thurloe looking put out. 'Well — I am a printer, as you know, and was told many years ago, never to take responsibility for ideas — but I can evaluate prose! See here, where he appeals to members of the army as his audience. The phrase he uses, to all those Officers and soldiers of the Army that remember their engagements and dare to be honest — 'engagement' is a word beloved of Sexby; it is used again afterwards. And at the end he suddenly turns to the business of Miles Sindercombe, claiming his death was not suicide, but Colonel Barkstead smothered him with pillows. He equates Sindercombe with Brutus and Cassius — 'give him statues and monuments' — '
'Wickedness!' snarled Thurloe.
'Persuasive wickedness: take it seriously. This has all Sexby's fervour. And the pamphlet is meant to introduce some new drama: 'Courteous reader, expect another sheet or two of this subject if I escape the tyrant's hands'…' Thurloe shuddered. Gideon pressed on: 'Your arrest of Sindercombe and the rest lost Sexby his helpers. He will have to come to London himself.'
'Boyes too?' queried Thurloe. 'Your man Lovell?'
Gideon jumped on this instantly: 'If you think Lovell will come, then you know he has left England?'
Thurloe was almost tetchy. 'He went to Flanders.' Gideon considered it, thinking of Thomas, now taken right abroad, to a strange country out of all reach of his family. 'Lovell may come here again — but Sexby will not send him. For Sexby, it is necessary that the Protector's life be taken by a man with the right credentials. A Royalist assassin will not do. The proclamation in June would seem an apt moment.' He and Thurloe both silently considered how the scene would be: trumpets, bells and bonfires, aldermen and soldiers, volleys of shot and huge crowds applauding them… a stupendous public occasion at which to cause terror with an assassination. Gideon then repeated, 'Sexby will come himself.'
Thurloe leaned back in his chair, his mouth compressed into an even tighter line than normal. He twirled a pen slowly between the fingers of his right hand. 'Reports come regularly that Sexby is here — we never see him to detain him…' He leaned forward to his papers again, looking tense. 'He somehow keeps the interest of both the Spanish and Charles Stuart… Here — from the end of January: 'It is not above five or six weeks since Sexby came last from England.' — So he was meddling, in December! Then he went back. Nothing changes!' Thurloe growled. 'Nothing, nothing, nothing…' He read again grimly: ' 'You need to be very careful, that when His Highness should go forth to take the air, there be a special care had of the followers, that there be no strangers in company, but those who are known to be faithful…' This came only in April.'
Gideon did not trust the April report. 'That sounds like some fool who has heard about the previous plots and reminds you to gain credibility. Did you pay money for that statement?'
'Cynic!' rebuked Thurloe good- humouredly. He plucked out another paper: ' 'The sum of my intelligence from Flanders: Sexby did not go for England at the time formerly mentioned: want of money was the cause of his stay: he hath now received fourteen thousand pieces of eight, will be in England by the first of February. He expresses great regrets that the plot against His Highness's life did not take and gives out that he will lose his own, rather than fail to accomplish that design'… Well, Sexby may come. Lovell may come. But I have a new concern.' Thurloe looked up and pierced Gideon with his fiercest gaze. 'Captain, when the Sindercombe plotters were examined, one — it was Toope — said Sindercombe had told him that a second great firework existed, in a box. He never knew where it was.'
'The gunpowder will be spent,' Gideon muttered at once, shaking his head. 'Even if he could have stored the bombarillo somewhere dry, it will be badly decayed.'
'Pitch and tar survive,' argued Thurloe. 'The spiteful thing could still do great damage. The first flamed up violently when it was tried. I want to find it, Captain. I would like you to find it.'
'Me? Surely the Lord Protector has his guards — '
'Toope was a Lifeguard!' Thurloe lifted yet another paper from his pile. 'Sturgeon is another such… Here I have an agent saying he shared a conversation in a tavern with some from His Highness's Lifeguard; they claimed one man in three of them is not to be trusted.'
Gideon knew enough history to be aware that great men surrounded by bodyguards were still at risk of assassination — most usually by their bodyguards. Not only did the soldiers have access, they lived close enough to see through their masters' charisma and to become disenchanted.
'Why trust me?' he demanded.
Thurloe smiled. 'I trust your desire to live in harmony with your wife, free of Colonel Lovell! Besides, you have an honest face.' He could be smooth. Flattery would not make Gideon co-operate; of course, John Thurloe knew
