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the seat of the monarchs, the Tower of London was now a prison, and home to the Board of Ordnance. For his residence, Charles II preferred Whitehall.
    Charles II was why he had been kept here.
    The Earl of Shaftesbury looked up at the rooms that had been his gaol. The windows were dark, empty for the first time in a year. Candles and lamps sent their flickering lights from other windows, each glow indicating a prisoner reading or writing, or, as he had spent so much time doing, preparing.
    His hand rested on the wall, as he surveyed the snow falling around him, blown about at the mercy of the wind. He moved down the timber steps, through the Jewel House and on past the decayed remnants of the Hall. A deferential yeoman led him past the stores keeping the munitions, ropes, masts, and tackle.
    Wearing a long bottle-green coat, which brushed the snow as he went through it, Shaftesbury walked through the gate of the inner wall, where the warden left him. Another man took him through the Wakefield Tower, and to the Watergate. Then through Saint Thomas’s Tower. They reached the last portcullis, and it was raised for him.
    He stood outside on the Wharf.
    A black coach-and-four waited there. Its driver wore an oiled goatskin coat to protect him from the weather. The wood of the coach, lacquered and polished, reflected the released man’s image back to him. He studied it: a pale long face tapering past fleshy lips to a small chin, jowls grown more apparent during his imprisonment.
    He leaned back, brought back his fist, and punched his reflection hard, the noise making one of the horses start, its hooves sliding on the snow. He studied the damage he had made, a crack in the lacquer and a dent in the wood.
    The driver soothed the horse, making low sounds to calm it. He made no attempt to stop the Earl from committing further violence to the coach. It was not his place, and it was not his coach.
    His sounds seemed to calm the Earl too. Shaftesbury raised his hand, which stung from the blow, in apology to his driver. He smiled, at himself as much as at his man.
    He threw back his head and opened his mouth, letting the snowflakes descend onto his tongue. He relished the taste. His new freedom made his senses sharp.
    The door of the coach was swung open, and an arm extended from its interior to help him step up.
    Inside, he settled himself on the cushioned seat, revelling in the smell of his own coach. The window was a sheet of tin pierced with holes, and he put up a hand to its coldness to steady his view. Through these small points of brightness he observed the Lion’s Tower shrink, as the coach lurched, transporting him away. He listened intently for the sounds of the Royal Menagerie held there, but heard only the thudding of the hooves in front, as his horses struggled for grip.
    The animals remain while I leave, he thought, feeling pity for them.
    He could still feel the churning in his stomach. The travel of the coach soothed him. From incarceration to home: Thanet House in Aldersgate Street.
    When he was at last entirely calm, and breathing regularly, he turned from the tin window, and looked towards his companion, a lady dressed in a long, intricately-patterned dark-blue coat, for the first time regarding her directly.
    The beauty of her face had not yet faded; she looked to be around thirty years of age, although the thick powder and rouge she wore hid any blemishes there might have been. She did not wear her wig, carrying it instead on her lap, showing her hair to be a dark-brown colour.
    She flinched from him, pressing back into the cushioned seat to keep the distance between them, and averted her eyes from his stare.
    ‘This day of freedom marks the start of my revenge,’ the Earl said.
    Her eyes became glossy, as tears formed in them.
    He slapped her.
    The trace of his hand was clear: a red print on her cheek.
    Observation VI
Of Transparency
    The boy was arranged like an exhibit, a curio displayed for a penny a show.
    ‘