LITMIR.BIZ

      ST OLAVE’S WAS on the south side of Hart Street, not far from the sprawling buildings of Navy Office in Seething Lane. On Sunday morning, I waited outside the church in a hackney. It was a fine day, and I had pulled back the leather curtain so I could feel the sun on my face and watch the church door.

      When the congregation emerged, I saw several men I recognized, mainly clerks from the Navy Office or the Tower. I stepped down from the coach and waited for Lady Quincy. The church was crowded, and she was one of the last to emerge from the porch. She was veiled, and flanked by her maid on one side and the footboy on the other. The maid was a prim-faced woman who avoided looking at me.

      I bowed to her ladyship, and she nodded to me as she climbed into the coach and sat down, facing forwards. The boy scrambled after her, and she drew him down beside her. Despite the warmth of the day he wore the thick, high-collared cloak I had seen on Friday. I waited for the maid to follow her mistress but she walked away in the direction of Mark Lane.

      ‘Where to, madam?’ I asked.

      ‘Tell the coachman to go to Bishopsgate Street beyond the wall. I will give you further directions when we are there.’

      I gave the man his instructions and joined her inside the hackney. The boy was huddled beside her. I faced them both, though I automatically turned my head a little to the right to conceal the disfigurement on the left side of my face. Lady Quincy moved aside her veil, and for the first time I saw her face clearly. I felt a pang of sadness, almost a physical pain.

      Here was the reason I had put on my best suit of clothes this morning and had my periwig newly curled. Olivia, Lady Quincy, was a gentlewoman a few years older than myself; she had fine, dark eyes, a melodious voice and a full figure that her sober dress could not entirely conceal. But the living creature was not the same as the one who had played such a dramatic role in my mind for nigh on a year. She was well enough, I told myself, but one glimpsed a dozen like her every day at Whitehall, and many more beautiful.

      The hackney jolted over the cobbles, and she winced. ‘Let the curtain fall,’ she commanded.

      I obeyed, causing an artificial dusk to fill the interior of the coach. ‘I did what you asked me, madam. I passed on your warning to a certain young lady. But she was reluctant to flee from her cousin.’

      ‘She was always headstrong.’

      I was tempted to tell Lady Quincy of Cat’s betrothal but I kept quiet. It was not my secret, any more than the fact that her cousin Edward had raped her.

      ‘Where is she? Is she somewhere safe?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

      ‘She’s a fool if she stays. Her cousin won’t leave her alone, you know. Edward nurses his hatreds as if they were his children.’

      We sat in silence for a minute or two while we rattled through the noisy streets, listening to our coachman swearing at those who blocked his way.

      ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

      Lady Quincy looked up. ‘To see Mr Knight. He is one of the King’s Sergeant Surgeons.’

      I looked sharply at her. ‘Mr John Knight? The Surgeon General himself?’

      ‘Do you know him?’

      ‘By reputation, yes.’

      Knight was one of the King’s most favoured medical attendants; he had proved his loyalty during the civil war and afterwards when the court was in exile. Last year, he had corresponded frequently with Mr Williamson about the health of the Navy, which was how I had come across him. But Sunday morning was an unusual time for a consultation with a physician or surgeon, let alone one of Mr Knight’s eminence. It was yet another hint that the shadowy influence of the King was behind this.

      ‘Where are we meeting him?’ I asked. ‘I thought he lodged in Russell Street, not near Bishopsgate.’

      ‘He is visiting his wife’s cousin, and he has agreed to see us there before they dine.’

      Lady Quincy took a purse from her pocket and handed it to me. ‘He will expect his fee afterwards – would you see to it for me? And the coachman will need his fare; you must ask him to wait for us while we are with Mr Knight. By the way, there’s no need to mention who I am, particularly in front of servants. You may introduce me as your cousin, Mistress Green. Our appointment is in your name, and you would oblige me if you give him the impression that Stephen is your servant.’

      ‘Mine?’ I stared at her. ‘Madam, it would help if I knew what we’re about.’

      For a moment she said nothing. Then: ‘Pull aside the curtain.’

      I did as she bid me. Light poured into the hackney.

      ‘Stephen? Show the gentleman what you are.’

      The boy sat forward from the seat and pulled open his cloak. For the first time I saw him properly. He was richly dressed, as such African boys usually were when they served wealthy ladies; for they were kept as toys or pets as much as servants. He was handsome enough, in his way, with regular features and large eyes fringed with long lashes. But it was his neck that drew my gaze. If you kept a blackamoor as a personal attendant to serve you in public, it was fashionable to adorn the neck with a silver collar – a nod to the fact that he or she had been brought to England as a slave, and of course a sign of the owner’s wealth. This boy didn’t wear a collar, however. His neck was disfigured and bloated by swellings. He was suffering from the King’s Evil.

      ‘As you see, he has scrofula,’ Lady Quincy went on. ‘You must not be concerned – I believe there is no risk of infection. I took him to Whitehall to see the King touching the afflicted, to show him that there were others like himself.’ She glanced at the boy and added, ‘God has granted the King the ability to heal, as a token of his divinely ordained right to rule over us.’

      ‘How charitable,’ I said. I felt guilty for my earlier self-consciousness about my own blemishes, caused by a fire a few months before: if I compared them with this child’s neck, what had I to complain of?

      In some small, cynical part of my mind, I thought that Stephen’s scrofula had provided perfect cover for our meeting when she had asked me to pass on the warning to Cat.

      ‘I wanted Stephen to see the ceremony of healing,’ she went on. ‘To reassure him. He is superstitious, you see, like all these savages, and he thought it might be a sort of witchcraft.’ She spoke as if the boy were not there.

      ‘And Mr Knight? Do you hope he will cure Stephen?’

      Lady Quincy shook her head. ‘No – only the King can do that. But as Sergeant Surgeon he is qualified to issue certificates of scrofula, as well as the tickets for sufferers to attend the public healing ceremony. Besides, I wish to know more about the illness.’ She swallowed suddenly and her fingers made small, convulsive movements on her lap. ‘About its symptoms. And its causes.’

      ‘But my lady – why do you want me to escort you? Why is the appointment in my name? Why all this secrecy?’

      ‘Because I desire that my interest in scrofula should not be public knowledge, or not at present. That’s why I wore a veil when we met at the Banqueting House, and that’s why the appointment is in your name.’ Lady Quincy paused, and moistened her lips. ‘I have my reasons, and perhaps one day I shall confide in you. But, in the meantime, I know I may trust you to be discreet.’

      The house was old and large, with many rooms and passages that seemed to have been acquired

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