第50章 THE REGICIDE(1)

There was a sharp grue of ice in the air, as Mr.Nicholas Lovel climbed the rickety wooden stairs to his lodgings in Chancery Lane hard by Lincoln's Inn.That morning he had ridden in from his manor in the Chilterns, and still wore his heavy horseman's cloak and the long boots splashed with the mud of the Colne fords.He had been busy all day with legal matters--conveyances on which his opinion was sought, for, though it was the Christmas vacation, his fame among the City merchants kept him busy in term and out of it.Rarely, he thought, had he known London in so strange a temper.Men scarcely dared to speak above their breath of public things, and eyed him fearfully--even the attorneys who licked his boots--as if a careless word spoken in his presence might be their ruin.For it was known that this careful lawyer stood very near Cromwell, had indeed been his comrade at bed and board from Marston to Dunbar, and, though no Commons man, had more weight than any ten in Parliament.Mr.Lovel could not but be conscious of the tension among his acquaintances, and had he missed to note it there he would have found it in the streets.Pride's troopers were everywhere, riding in grim posses or off duty and sombrely puffing tobacco, vast, silent men, lean from the wars.The citizens on the causeway hurried on their errand, eager to find sanctuary from the biting air and the menace of unknown perils.Never had London seen such a Christmastide.Every man was moody and careworn, and the bell of Paul's as it tolled the hours seemed a sullen prophet of woe.

His servant met him on the stair.

"He is here," he said."I waited for him in the Bell Yard and brought him in secretly."Lovel nodded, and stripped off his cloak, giving it to the man."Watch the door like a dragon, Matthew," he told him."For an hour we must be alone.

Forbid anyone, though it were Sir Harry himself."The little chamber was bright with the glow of a coal fire.The red curtains had been drawn and one lamp lit.The single occupant sprawled in a winged leather chair, his stretched-out legs in the firelight, but his head and shoulders in shadow.A man entering could not see the face, and Lovel, whose eyes had been weakened by study, peered a second before he closed the door behind him.

"I have come to you, Nick, as always when my mind is in tribulation."The speaker had a harsh voice, like a bellman's which has been ruined by shouting against crowds.He had got to his feet and seemed an elderly man, heavy in body, with legs too short for the proportions of his trunk.He wore a soldier's coat and belt, but no sword.His age might have been fifty, but his face was so reddened by weather that it was hard to judge.

The thick straight black locks had little silver in them, but the hair that sprouted from a mole on the chin was grey.His cheeks were full and the heavy mouth was pursed like that of a man in constant painful meditation.

He looked at first sight a grazier from the shires or some new-made squire of a moderate estate.But the eyes forbade that conclusion.There was something that brooded and commanded in those eyes, something that might lock the jaw like iron and make their possessor a hammer to break or bend the world.

Mr.Lovel stirred the fire very deliberately and sat himself in the second of the two winged chairs.

"The King?" he queried."You were in two minds when we last spoke on the matter.I hoped I had persuaded you.Has some new perplexity arisen?"The other shook his big head, so that for a moment he had the look of a great bull that paws the ground before charging.

"I have no clearness," he said, and the words had such passion behind them that they were almost a groan.

Lovel lay back in his chair with his finger tips joined, like a jurisconsult in the presence of a client."Clearness in such matters is not for us mortals," he said."You are walking dark corridors which the lamp of the law does not light.You are not summoned to do justice, being no judge, but to consider the well-being of the State.Policy, Oliver.Policy, first and last."The other nodded."But policy is two-faced, and I know not which to choose.""Is it still the business of the trial?" Lovel asked sharply."We argued that a fortnight since, and I thought I had convinced you.The case has not changed.Let me recapitulate.Imprimis, the law of England knows no court which can bring the King of England before it.""Tchut, man.Do not repeat that.Vane has been clacking it in my ear.Itell you, as I told young Sidney, that we are beyond courts and lawyer's quibbles, and that if England requires it I will cut off the King's head with the crown on it."Lovel smiled."That is my argument.You speak of a trial, but in justice there can be no trial where there is neither constituted court nor valid law.If you judge the King, 'tis on grounds of policy.Can you defend that policy, Oliver? You yourself have no clearness.Who has; Not Vane.Not Fairfax.Not Whitelocke, or Widdrington, or Lenthall.Certes, not your old comrade Nick Lovel.""The Army desires it--notably those in it who are most earnest in God's cause.""Since when have you found a politic judgment in raw soldiers? Consider, my friend.If you set the King on his trial it can have but the one end.You have no written law by which to judge him, so your canon will be your view of the public weal, against which he has most grievously offended.It is conceded Your verdict must be guilty and your sentence death.Once put him on trial and you unloose a great stone in a hill-side which will gather speed with every yard it journeys.You will put your King to death, and in whose name?

Cromwell raised his head which he had sunk between his hands."In the name of the Commons of Parliament and all the good people of England."Folly, man.Your Commons are a disconsidered rump of which already you have made a laughingstock.As for your good people of England, you know well that ten out of any dozen are against you.The deed will be done in your own name and that of the hoteads of the Army.'Twill be an act of war.