The King's Chameleon by Richard Woodman Page B

Gooding stood miserably before Faulkner. They made an odd pair, the one still in dusty clothes, the other looking as though he had just swum the Thames.
    â€˜I did not know of Henry’s deception until about a month ago. He came to the house and I had come home from the counter while you had gone to Blackwall to discuss the fitting of the lower capstan and then aboard the
Arrow
, d’you remember? I expressed my astonishment, but immediately guessed how he had played his trick and that his being in the house meant that someone here knew too.’
    â€˜Hannah?’
    Gooding shook his head. ‘No, she knows nothing, bless her, though how Henry and Judith kept things from her I do not know.’
    â€˜She is trusting and trustworthy,’ Faulkner said pointedly. ‘She believed Henry had sailed with Edmund Drinkwater, and that association made the lie the more believable. It gulled me, by God!’
    â€˜Yes, yes, I daresay. They had concealed the matter from me well enough, but I am not here during the daytime. For all I know they met elsewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘To hear Henry talk, the entire city is rife with plots and conspiracies and the King’s life hangs by a thread. Ever since the hanging of the first of the Regicides – Thomas Harrison, if I recall aright, though there have been over-many of them for my liking, poor souls – there have been rumours of a revival of the old Army.’
    Faulkner scoffed. ‘Time passes, Nathan; the New Model has become the Old Army as well as the Royal Army and most get their pay after a fashion, which is more than can be said during Old Nol’s reign.’
    â€˜That may be, but it does not alter the case in Henry’s eyes.’
    â€˜Where is the boy, Nathan? And where is his mother? She will burn for a witch if the King has his way, while Henry will be dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn.’
    â€˜Don’t talk like that about your own son!’
    â€˜Don’t preach to me, damn you,’ Faulkner said in a low voice. ‘I set out the plain truth. If that fool of a boy has allied himself with any plot he will hang, and all the rest of the disgusting ritual which has been inflicted on the Regicides will be visited upon him and his co-conspirators.’
    â€˜I know, I know.’ Gooding was weeping now, the effects of emotion and alcoholic remorse playing havoc with him.
    â€˜Where
is
his mother?’ Faulkner asked, his voice again low and temperate.
    Gooding looked at him miserably and shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Kit, I truly do not know.’
    Faulkner nodded and indicated the stain seeping through Gooding’s breeches. ‘Very well; you look as though you need a piss-pot. I am going to a bath. I will send up some food.’
    â€˜No, don’t do that,’ said Gooding, his humiliation complete as he rummaged under the bed for the piss-pot. ‘I could not bear for anyone else to see me like this.’
    â€˜I understand. Come below when you are ready. I will send Hargreaves to Blackwall with a note that we are detained.’
    The bath not only refreshed Faulkner, it also gave him time to think. He thought not only of Judith’s treachery but of Katherine’s pliant hands, for the hot water still stung his wounded flesh, despite the remarkable effects of Prince Rupert’s grease. His mood of elation heightened: it was clear that the King entertained some regard for him; he had discovered Katherine and, almost in the same breath, the deception of his wife. Why, the coincidence could not have been more apt! It was astonishing! Despite the dangerous curiosity of his circumstances he felt an extreme pang of sublime happiness …
    Until, that is, he recalled that all hinged upon the apprehension and transportation of Henry far from these shores. The recollection threw cold-water on his sudden and infatuated felicity, making him angry again. As he rose from the tub, the water