Murder on High Holborn by Susanna Gregory

books.
    Thurloe did not look like someone who had been one of the most powerful men in the country. He was slightly built with shoulder-length hair and large blue eyes. His modest, unassuming manner led some people to believe he was weak, but he possessed a core of steel, as many enemies of the republic had learned to their cost. He had inspired deep loyalty among those he employed, and many continued to send him snippets of information, so he was almost as well informed now as when he had been Spymaster. He did not smile often, but he beamed when he saw Chaloner, an open, delighted grin full of pleasure and affection.
    ‘Tom! I had no idea you were home. When did you return? Come, sit by the fire and tell me all about it. Cromwell’s ambassadors always claimed that Russia is dreadfully squalid. Is it?’
    ‘I did not see enough of it to judge.’ Chaloner allowed himself to be ushered into a chair and provided with a cup of something warm. He sipped it cautiously. Thurloe imagined himself to be in fragile health and swallowed all manner of potions that promised to restore the vigour he had enjoyed at twenty. He was not above foisting them on his guests, so Chaloner was always wary of anything he could not immediately identify.
    ‘It was a dangerous mission,’ Thurloe went on, ‘carrying dispatches begging for the Tsar’s help in the event of us losing the Dutch war. Clarendon was right to send them, of course: France and Spain might well attack us while we are weak, in which case we shall need a powerful ally.’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Chaloner.
    ‘But the Privy Council will denounce him as a traitor if they ever find out. We cannot win the war, but they consider it treason for one of their number to say so. What did the Tsar say? Was he amenable to Clarendon’s proposal?’
    ‘I never delivered it. All Russia’s ports are closed by ice in winter, and the so-called expert who told the Earl that this year is an exception was wrong. A storm blew us against a great sheet of it, which sliced through the hull like a knife through butter. We sank within minutes, and the dispatches were lost, along with the jewels the Earl had included as a bribe.’
    ‘Lost?’ asked Thurloe, puzzled. ‘How? Surely you carried them on your person?’
    ‘Clarendon insisted that they would be safer in the forward hold. Unfortunately, that was the first place to flood, at which point I learned that I am not very good at picking locks underwater in the pitch dark.’
    ‘You were reckless to have tried. What happened next?’
    ‘We abandoned ship and swam to the ice edge. Fortunately, it was not far to the coast, and we were able to reach a village.’
    ‘And its people lent you a boat to return home?’
    ‘They offered, but I thought I should at least try to deliver Clarendon’s message. I continued the journey on horseback, and Captain Lester came with me. But when we reached the Russian border we were told that we would not have been allowed in even
with
the dispatches, as we had not been issued with the necessary passes. We were accused of spying and put in prison.’
    ‘That cannot have been easy for you,’ said Thurloe sympathetically. He was the only person who fully understood Chaloner’s aversion to such places. ‘But you escaped?’
    ‘Yes. And then we came home.’
    That had not been easy either, given that a pack of angry Russian guards had been hot on their heels, and Chaloner did not think he had ever spent so many hours in the saddle in so short a space of time. He liked travelling, but that had been an ordeal he was keen to forget.
    ‘Shall we talk of other matters?’ asked Thurloe kindly. ‘You can start by telling me what scheme compels you to be “dismissed” from Clarendon’s service.’
    Chaloner hoped no one else would see through the Earl’s ploy so readily. ‘He thinks it will allow me to infiltrate a band of malcontents – with the help of a turncoat named William Leving.’
    ‘Leving,’ mused