The King’s Evil. Andrew Taylor

      TOWARDS THE END of her second day at Mangot’s Farm, Cat sat by the window of her chamber, looking out over the sloping fields behind the house. The light was fading, and the tents and cabins below were mercifully less obvious than they were in the daylight.

      It was a chilly evening. No more than two or three fires were burning, though scores of people were living there, for firewood was scarce after all these months. It was quieter than it had been earlier in the day when, under Israel Halmore’s direction, the men of the camp had been building further shelters and strengthening the existing ones, using the nails and canvas that he and Mangot had brought from London. There had been ground frosts already, and the refugees realized that winter would soon be upon them.

      Cat’s casement was open, and she heard the sound of singing from one side of the camp; some of the men gathered here in the evening and drank a raw grain spirit that they distilled in one of the ruined outhouses in the farmyard. The smell of smoke drifted towards her, mingling with the smells from the stream the refugees used for a latrine. Once upon a time, Mangot’s Farm had prospered, but that time was long gone.

      This refugee camp was not like those that the authorities had established on the outskirts of London in the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire, such as Moorfields and Smithfield. These, almost all closed now, had been relatively well-administered affairs with makeshift streets neatly laid out and lined with temporary shops, and with access to markets and to the jobs that had sprung up as the city began to grow anew from its own ashes. This camp, by contrast, was small, isolated and chaotic. The only authorities its inhabitants recognized were Israel Halmore, who dominated the others by force of personality, and Mr Mangot, who let them use his land because he could no longer work it himself, and because he believed that God had commanded him in a vision to expiate his sins and those of his dead son by providing a home for the homeless.

      It was warmer in the kitchen, but she preferred to be up here, alone in the little chamber under the eaves that had once belonged to the old man’s son. The door was solid, and she could bolt herself in. Besides, there was nothing to attract her in the rest of the house, which was gradually turning into a ruin, and only a fool would venture into the camp itself unless they had no choice in the matter.

      She felt sleepy, and her mind drifted back to the commission at Clarendon House. Modernizing an old building like the pavilion was a tricky matter, as Mr Hakesby had pointed out to my lord; it would have been far simpler to pull it down altogether and rebuild it from scratch to match its near twin in the opposite corner of the garden. However well they did it, the result must be a mongrel building, particularly from the rear and side elevations, neither one thing nor the other. On the other hand, she thought, the mansion itself was a mongrel building, for all the money that had been spent on it. It was classical in its pediment and its symmetries but, in the native English manner, it lacked classical orders. Should they ever look down on it from heaven, Andrea Palladio would shake his head and Vitruvius would throw up his hands in disgust.

      The pavilion was a matter of sentiment, Cat had understood, a gift from an old man to his ailing wife. At the start, they had occasionally seen her ladyship herself. Later, when her health worsened, Lord Clarendon, wincing at the pain from his gout, had sometimes shuffled down the garden on the arm of Mr Milcote to inspect the works. But then Lady Clarendon had died, and he had come no more. Mr Milcote, my lord’s gentleman, came in their place.

      Cat’s mind shied away from Mr Milcote. She was increasingly worried by the conversation she had overheard in the cart yesterday morning, on their way to the farm. If Halmore had been right, the Duke of Buckingham was orchestrating the attacks on Clarendon House. Who was the Bishop, who was acting as the Duke’s agent? It had sounded as if he planned something else to harm Clarendon, something much worse. Perhaps he would incite the mob to break down the gates and set fire to the house itself. He might even attack Clarendon in person.

      She had liked Lady Clarendon, and she respected the Earl; good clients, who took an informed interest in the work and paid Hakesby’s bills on time, were few and far between. The house itself might not be architecturally perfect, but she had no wish to see it damaged. She wished there were a way to warn them.

      A woman screeched somewhere in the camp, reminding Cat that she could not stay here for ever – it was time for her to prepare the old man’s supper, if one could call the meal that. This was part of the price she paid for his hospitality.

      She went slowly down the creaking stairs, avoiding the third tread from the bottom, which was rotten, and went into the kitchen. Mr Mangot was already there. He was reading his Bible by the faint, evil-smelling glow of a rushlight, running his finger slowly along the lines of words. He still wore his smock, which was made of unbleached linen and too large for him. He was painfully thin and always melancholy.

      Cat made up the fire and set the pan of soup to warm. There seemed to be nothing else to eat here, apart from stale bread which they dipped in the soup to soften it. She had given Mr Mangot another five shillings this morning in the hope that he would buy more food.

      Outside in the yard, one of the dogs barked. The other dog took it up. Then they fell silent.

      ‘Is someone coming here?’ she whispered, slipping her hand into her pocket, where the knife was.

      ‘The carrier, probably,’ he said, without looking up. His voice sounded creaky with disuse. ‘They bark differently if it’s a stranger. He’ll see Israel first, then he’ll come here. He calls for orders on Monday evenings. He’s a pedlar, too – always got something to sell.’

      ‘Food?’ Cat asked.

      He shook his head, his finger still moving across the page.

      ‘Could he take a letter to London for me?’

      Mangot raised his head from the book. His eyes were so filmy that she wondered he could read at all. ‘A letter? You can ask him. Who’s it to?’

      ‘Your nephew.’

      He snorted. ‘Are you his sweetheart?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Just as well.’

      She glanced at the pot on the smouldering fire. The soup would take another quarter of an hour