London - Edward Rutherfurd [398]
It was the custom that the condemned man might address the crowd. This had been allowed to Charles Stuart also. Holding a few notes on a scrap of paper in his hand, the king began to speak. How gracefully he did so. The day when he had met him at Greenwich came back into Julius’s mind. There was the same calm manner, the careful politeness. He even seemed to be addressing this rabble who had come to gawp at his death as though they were so many ambassadors.
But what was he saying? Julius could see that the secretaries on the platform were making notes, but from where he was standing in the crowd it was hard to hear. Certain phrases he caught. Parliament, he declared had been the first to begin the conflict over privilege, not he. Monarchs, he reminded them, are there to keep the ancient constitutions, which are the people’s freedom. Now, instead, they had only the arbitrary power of the sword in his place. Whatever his own sins might be, “I am a martyr of the people,” he cried. “And a Christian of the Church of England,” he reminded them, “as I found it left by my father.”
Then he was done. They removed his cloak and jerkin so that he stood only in a white shirt over his breeches. They tucked his hair under a cap, so it should not impede the axe and they led him to the block. And it was just then, in the awful silence before he knelt down to the block, that, surveying the faces in the crowd, King Charles caught sight of Sir Julius Ducket, and their eyes met.
How sad those eyes looked, in that noble, kingly face, yet as they held Julius’s for a moment, they seemed to contain a question. How could he forget his vow at Oxford, and the king’s words – “if anything should befall me” – how solemnly, how tragically prophetic? Looking King Charles straight in the eye, he made a quick bow of his head. There could be no mistaking its meaning. It said: “I have promised.” In the moment of his death, King Charles should know that Ducket at least, of all the men in that crowd, would keep faith with his sons. It seemed to Julius that he saw a look of gratitude in reply.
Not even his most bitter enemies could deny that King Charles I of England went to his death with the most remarkable grace. As the axeman struck a single, clean blow, the whole crowd let out a great groan, as if suddenly they understood their awful deed. And as the executioner held up the king’s severed head, perhaps Sir Julius Ducket was not alone as he murmured to himself: “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
Two days afterwards Sir Julius Ducket received a visit from Jane Wheeler. The document she showed him was perfectly clear. It stated plainly that a certain sea captain by the name of Orlando Barnikel had left her his treasure chest which resided in the safe keeping of his father Alderman Ducket. It also exactly described the chest. There could be no mistaking it. And what in heaven’s name, Julius wondered, as he gazed at Jane in stupefaction, was he to do?
Was the old chest with its padlocks burst still lying down there in the cellar? He could not remember. What about the treasure itself? About half was left, but who knew what he might need in the uncertain years to come? What if he were to give her some of it and tell her he had removed it from the chest to hide it more easily? Would she believe him? He suspected not. And that, he thought, would invite people to investigate his own affairs. Those old coins – people would start saying they were the sea captain’s instead of his father’s. They’d call him a thief.
A sea captain! He knew perfectly well what kind of man had left this treasure to this apparently respectable widow. A blackamoor. A pirate. Stolen money anyway. But of course, if he said that, he would be admitting he knew about the matter. And why,