A Conspiracy of Violence by Susanna Gregory Read Free Book Online

surmised Leybourn with his annoying intuitiveness. He nodded at Chaloner’s
     head. ‘At a time when men are proud to display flowing locks, yours are short. You have good, thick hair, the kind a wigmaker
     might purchase from a man in urgent need of funds.’
    ‘I usually wear a periwig,’ said Chaloner, wondering how the man was able to draw so many accurate conclusions. It was disconcerting,
     and he did not like it. He pulled the headpiece, which the wigmaker had provided as part of the bargain, from his pocket.
     He hated it: it smelled of the horse whose tail had provided the raw materials, and had a tendency to slip to one side. ‘But
     I was hot.’
    ‘Where do you live?’ asked Leybourn. ‘If it is near Cripplegate, we can share a carriage.’
    ‘
I
would rather walk,’ said Robert, beginning to move away. ‘The last time I treated myself to a carriage, the driver went to
     the Fleet Rookery and abandoned me there. I lost my purse and most of my clothes to villains who crept out of the shadows
     with staves and knives.’
    ‘I will go by water,’ said Chaloner, watching him disappear into the crowd.
    ‘Then I will come with you,’ said Leybourn, in the kind of voice that suggested objections would be futile. ‘I fancy a jaunt
     on the river. How far will you be going?’
    Chaloner regarded him coolly. Was he employed by the new government to watch men who had once been in Thurloe’s pay? Or was
     he hired by Kelyng or Downing,and his tirades against them were a ruse to gain the confidence of dissenters? Or was he just a nosy bookseller, and Chaloner
     had been an agent for so long that he was apt to be wary of everyone? He studied the thin, eager features as they walked,
     and all his experience failed him: he could not tell whether Leybourn was friend or foe.
    The quickest way to the nearest pier – the Westminster Stairs – was through the Holbein Gate, a sturdy but shabby edifice
     that straddled King Street and was a major obstacle for carts. Drivers regularly clamoured for it to be demolished, but the
     King stubbornly resisted any attempts to reduce the size of his palace. The gate boasted several stately chambers, and their
     current occupant, Chaloner learned from Leybourn, was Lady Castlemaine. Chaloner suspected that most of the stories about
     the King’s favourite mistress were wildly exaggerated. When he had visited his boyhood home in Buckinghamshire that summer,
     his brothers had told him she regularly amassed gambling debts of a hundred thousand pounds, and his sisters thought she was
     a secret drinker. Now Leybourn was claiming she was pregnant with another of the King’s brats, although her meek husband declared
     it was his own.
    ‘It is not, of course,’ declared Leybourn, negotiating his way along King Street. For a major thoroughfare, it was wretchedly
     narrow. Vehicles were nearly always at a standstill, and the congestion sometimes had to be sorted out by armed soldiers.
     The squeal of metal wheels on cobbles was amplified by the towering buildings on either side and, combined with the yells
     of traders and the racket of cattle being driven to the slaughterhouses, Chaloner could barely hear Leybourn bawling in his
     ear. ‘I doubt Lord Castlemaine has been within a mile of hiswedding bed for years. That honour is reserved for those with the funds to buy her expensive gifts.’
    They reached the mighty façade of Westminster Hall, where a small crowd lingered around the place where the heads and limbs
     of traitors were displayed. Chaloner looked away, not wanting to see the decaying remnants of men he had met in life. Leybourn
     led the way to a damp wooden pier that boasted a jostling flotilla of waiting boats. Immediately, another clamour assailed
     their ears, as rivermen vied for their custom, offering improbably low prices that would be inflated with hidden extras at
     the end of the journey. Leybourn seemed to enjoy the barter, and eventually selected a