The Butcher of Smithfield Read Free

when Chaloner made no comment on his dreary monologue of storms, rain and
     drizzle. ‘Was it far?’
    ‘I visited Dover,’ replied Chaloner ambiguously. He was fortunate in that Ellis seldom quizzed him about the odd hours he
     kept, or the disguises he often donned. The landlord believed him to be a victualling clerk for the Admiralty, an occupation
     so staid and dull that few people ever wanted to know about it. Unfortunately, though, even Ellis’s incurious nature was goaded
     into asking about a sudden and abrupt departure that had lasted nigh on four months.
    ‘Dover?’ echoed Ellis, scratching his head. There were lice in his periwig. ‘In Kent?’
    ‘The navy has business there,’ hedged Chaloner. Careful phrasing meant he was not actually lying, because his ship
had
stopped in Dover before sailing for Lisbon. He supposed there was no reason why he should not tell people that he had been
     on official business in Portugal and Spain, but he had been trained to keep confidences to a minimum and, after a decade in
     espionage, it was a difficult habit to break.
    ‘There is a big castle in Dover,’ said Ellis, as if he imagined his tenant might not have noticed it. ‘It will be our first
     line of defence when the Dutch invade. I was in the Turk’s Head Coffee House last night, and it wasfull of talk about the great flotilla of boats the Dutch is building, ready to fight us.’
    ‘They do not need to build anything,’ said Chaloner, who had spent several years undercover in Holland. ‘They already have
     a great navy. And, unlike ours, it is manned by sailors who have been paid, and is equipped with ships that are actually seaworthy.’
    Ellis shook his head. ‘The government should spend more money on defending us from foreigners, and less on chasing phantom
     rebels in the north of England. Have you been reading the newsbooks? The new editor, Roger L’Estrange, wants us to believe
     that Yorkshire is trying to start another civil war. He is obsessed with men he calls “phanatiques”.’
    ‘Right,’ said Chaloner vaguely, reluctant to admit that he had not seen a newsbook – an eight-page ‘news-paper’ produced by
     the government for the general public – since June
or
that he had never heard of Roger L’Estrange. He did not want to startle Ellis into an interrogation by displaying a total
     ignorance of current affairs.
    ‘L’Estrange is something of a phanatique himself, if you ask me,’ Ellis went on disapprovingly. ‘Someone should tell him the
     newsbooks were
not
founded to provide him with an opportunity to rant, but to disseminate interesting information to readers. I want to know
     who has died, been promoted or robbed in
London
, not L’Estrange’s perverted opinions about Yorkshire. And as for that piece about the Swiss ambassador – well, who
cares
what a foreign diplomat was given to eat in France?’
    ‘True,’ said Chaloner, supposing he had better spend a few hours reading, to catch up.
    ‘I am pleased to see you home again,’ said Ellis, searchingfor a subject that would elicit more than monosyllabic answers. ‘You said you might be gone a month, but it was four times
     that, and I was beginning to think you had decided to lodge elsewhere.’
    Chaloner thought back to the blossom-scented June morning when he had received the message that ordered him to go immediately
     to White Hall. Such summons were not unusual from his employer, and he had not thought much about it. Like many politicians,
     the Earl of Clarendon – currently Lord Chancellor – had accumulated plenty of enemies during his life, and relied on his spy
     to provide him with information that would allow him to stay one step ahead of them. However, it had not been Clarendon who
     had sent for him, then dispatched him on a long and dangerous mission to the Iberian Peninsula. It had been the Queen – and
     no one refused the ‘request’ of a monarch, even though Chaloner had been reluctant to