Traitor's Field Page 16

  He’d watched the stable for half an hour, and watched for movements near it. Only one heavy-timbered door, and he’d been ten minutes in checking through the gaps in the planks and feeling at the latch, and easing through. Eyes closed for the last seconds before entering so that his vision came quickly in the gloom, and he’d been fast into the shadow of a beam. Then more minutes working along the stalls, feet slow and ungainly up and gingerly down into the straw, past four silent, shifting horses. A sudden whinny from the first, now behind him, and he stopped; head still, eyes shifted back the way he’d come.

  The beast caught his glance, and shook its head dismissively. He waited until he could hear the others’ breaths again – waited until he inhabited the silence, knew its rhythms and corners. And so to the last stall, and the distinctive huddle of a body under a blanket against the wall.

  A glance all around him, and forward. The blanket covered the body from boot to head. Nearby, the proper inhabitant of the stall stood watching him; a shiver of the sleek head, a subdued whiffle, and hooves shifted in the straw. Shay could see the crushed area of straw where the horse had slept, alongside the body.

  That’s wrong.

  He spun, knife up in his left hand, but his wrist was caught in a fierce grip and he was back against a beam with a blade at his throat.

  Dark flat eyes in a worn face. Killing eyes. ‘You’d not planned on a knife through your neck, I think.’

  Shay’s eyes narrowed. ‘Nor you a bullet through your belly.’ And there was a click, heavy and loud between them.

  The man pushed the knife forward a fraction so that it broke the mottled skin of Shay’s neck, and allowed his eyes to drop for an instant before they flicked up again. It had been enough to see the pistol.

  A flicker of life came into the eyes. ‘Predicament.’

  Shay smiled. ‘Comfortable balance.’

  ‘You’re well-dressed for a horse-thief.’

  ‘And you for a groom.’ The man’s clothes, as much as Shay could glimpse through eyes kept still by the knife at his throat, were of quality but not ostentatious. A soldier as well as a gentleman.

  The man said, ‘And now?’

  ‘You’re a fugitive from Pontefract, and no ordinary soldier. I have tracked you, but alone. I fancy we might spare each other the time for a word.’ He breathed in carefully, and then there was another distinct click from the pistol.

  The knife held at his throat a moment more, and then flicked away. The body seemed to relax, and the knife disappeared. A nod into the stall. ‘Something told you the trick. At the last.’

  ‘Mm. Horse wouldn’t sleep so close to a stranger.’ A small scowl of real irritation on the face. Shay continued to examine it. ‘Man makes a mistake sometimes.’

  ‘Some men can’t afford to make more than one.’

  Shay nodded. ‘False trails. Traps. A man who lives a permanent ambush.’

  ‘If you don’t keep pace with life, you lose it.’ He was examining Shay as intently. ‘You seem to know the habit, sir.’ The eyes widened. ‘Wait: a man who tracks fugitives of the King, but not for ill; a man who knows every trick of the skirmish. Great gods. . . are you Shay?’

  Shay’s eyes went cold. ‘Not a name it’s safe to know, sir.’

  A faint shake of the head. ‘Nor, I imagine, to bear.’ A quick decision. ‘I am Teach.’

  A slow nod from Shay. ‘Yes. I thought you might be.’

  Shay and Teach found an inn on the road between Wakefield and Leeds, tended by a squint-eyed girl and her shambling, purple-nosed father, who roamed from room to room exchanging silent accusations. Shay and Teach had a room, and a fire, to themselves.

  Shay pulled three packaged papers from a pocket, and undid the first. ‘How was Pontefract?’

  ‘You know a siege, I think?’ A grunt from Shay. ‘So you know the conditions. The only question, ever, is whether the spirit and the water last long enough for relief to come.’

  ‘And this time there was no relief.’

  ‘We noticed.’ He said it without humour. ‘In the siege, in the end, men forget what they’re fighting for.’ He shook his head in distaste. ‘Mere survival. Futility; and the women and children crying.’

  ‘The command?’

  ‘Well enough. Morrice; John. Colonel. I’d heard reports of weakness and vice, but I saw none of that, and he was tested enough. Some put him out as a deceiver, for he was Parliament’s man before. He was bitter at them, right enough, and that made him determined. He captured the castle himself last year, and it was by patient planning and daring. As a commander: disciplined; respected.’

  Shay’s face was in the paper. ‘What communications had you with friends outside?’

  Teach turned to face him, careful. ‘Some.’

  Shay looked up, and then down again. ‘Reverend Beaumont is dead; hanged.’

  ‘And none shall follow him by my loose tongue.’ He watched Shay a moment longer, and then smiled at his own caution. ‘Very well. There was a way: a courier who knew a way out through the ditches and the slums, and would deliver messages to a church.’

  ‘Who knew of this?’

  ‘Two or three of us.’

  Shay left the names, for now. He pushed the first paper into his pocket again, opened the second, and after a moment threw it into the fire, watching it flare and vanish. ‘Did you ever know George Astbury?’

  ‘What do you know of him?’

  ‘He’s another dead man, Teach – another man who can no longer be betrayed.’ The head came forward. ‘But a man whose work others must continue.’

  Teach absorbed this, and nodded. ‘He sent me into Pontefract. Probably flattering, but by the time we were living on dogs and cats I was cursing him.’ A smile. ‘Horses, dogs, cats, rats, and worms we kill. . .’

  ‘. . . but the worms will revenge and have their fill.’ A child’s joke that defined men, and their smiles were forced. Shay went on: ‘And Astbury encouraged you to write to him, perhaps.’

  ‘He did. I had done so for him before, when I was in attendance on the King.’

  Shay nodded, glanced at him, and looked into the fire again.

  Teach had seen the glance clear enough. ‘And you will have suggestions for me now, perhaps.’

  ‘I could make a speech about duty and loyalty and honour, if it would help.’ He was opening the third packet.

  ‘Save it. I believe in none of them, not any more. But while I live I’ll live as well as I can.’

  Shay nodded again. ‘Ireland. I fancy—’ He stopped, gazing down at the open paper on his hand; ‘I fancy the war will shift there.’

  Teach’s face soured, grim. ‘By God, it doesn’t get any easier, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I need to eat, Shay. I have no family, no estate. But I hope to. Eventually. When this madness is done.’

  ‘I understand. You’ll not be forgotten.’

  ‘In Ireland? Whole armies have been forgotten there. When?’

  ‘A month or two yet. But you could do me at least one service in the meantime.’ He opened his hand: the third paper, with a very few words on it in an elegant script; and, wrapped in it, the coiled shimmer of a seashell. ‘I’m summoned, and I may need a man at my back.’

  Lyle, Thomas Scot’s man in Doncaster, operated out of a rented room above a dairy. Thurloe had the vague instinct that his having been blown up in the pursuit of duty entitled him to come and go there more freely, to a little more respect. For himself, his feelings wavered: a little heroic; somehow a little foolish.

  Lyle, to be fair, had changed his tone somewhat: still patronizing, but with an acknowledgement that Thurloe had been blooded. When Thurloe walked in he was sitting at a table, surrounded by papers: handwritten reports; one paper with an odd pattern of holes spaced in it; printed news-sheets. He was reading one page and writing laboriously on another. He finished a word, and then his eyes flicked up. ‘Hallo, Hotspur,’ he said, and smiled without warmth. ‘What you blown up today?�
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  Tarrant was standing against the window frame, arms folded tight together as if holding his energy in with difficulty. As soon as he saw Thurloe he was fully upright, frowning; then he subsided again stiffly. Tarrant’s tone had changed little. He’d claimed irritation that Thurloe hadn’t somehow done more. There was also, Thurloe thought, a faint sense of envy.

  There was a large chest against the near wall and, for want of an alternative, he sat on it. ‘Lyle,’ he began; Lyle’s eyes flicked up again. ‘What was he burning? Messages? Codes?’

  Lyle sat back. ‘You tell me. You saw it.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Tarrant was up again. ‘If you’d—’

  But Lyle had carried on. ‘That late on, I’d be surprised if there was any correspondence that hadn’t already been burned.’

  Thurloe absorbed it. ‘Must have been hellish important. To wait that long. Then to risk your life for it.’ Lyle nodded. ‘Lyle, who are these people? I was at Nottingham, and—’

  ‘The Royalists have their intelligencing men too,’ Lyle said. ‘They’re desperate – have to be now – and they’ll get worse.’

  ‘They’re a rash,’ Tarrant said, pushing forward into the conversation. ‘You’re the expert, Thurloe.’ To Lyle, with a sneer, ‘Thurloe fixed up the report on Rainsborough’s death, for Oliver St John. They’re like a poison, Thurloe. They will infect this whole world.’

  ‘But you must have some idea of them.’ Thurloe was leaning forwards; now he settled back, trying to seem measured. ‘You get. . . information about them. Reports. We have our spies, surely.’

  ‘Look—’ Tarrant, hot and then wondering where to take the initiative he’d just seized. He glanced down at Lyle, back at Thurloe, and then down again.

  What battle is this, and what side am I on? What am I not allowed to know?

  Lyle was still watching Thurloe.

  Why did I write the report on Colonel Rainsborough’s death, and not Tarrant, or Lyle himself?

  ‘We’re winning,’ Lyle said.

  ‘Logically there are two hypotheses.’ Thurloe had slowed his voice deliberately. ‘Either you’re incompetent, an intelligencing man without any intelligence to pass. Or you’re not telling all you know.’

  Tarrant scowled. Then he returned to his window.

  ‘You’re clever, Hotspur,’ Lyle said, and again the unconvincing smile. ‘But where’s it got you?’

  ‘Ready?’ The shadow of a nod from Teach, single and firm. ‘Don’t fall asleep.’

  Shay took a breath, and released it slowly. It disappeared into the rustle of leaves. Then he stepped forward from the tree line into thigh-length undergrowth.

  On the opposite side of the clearing, another figure had done the same.

  Shay peered through the gloom. A black cloak against the dark trunks, a black hat – and a mask of some kind.

  He took another pace forward, the bracken pulling at his boots.

  ‘Shay.’ It was Teach behind him, low and urgent. ‘He has a second – in the trees behind him. Two – three yards to the right.’

  Shay nodded slightly, let his eyes wander slowly to the right. He couldn’t see anything, of course.

  Buried to the knees in the grey foliage, he and his reflection watched each other. Another step forward, and they were both on clear ground.

  Three – four steps brought them to proximity in the centre, Shay forcing himself not to look at the trees, trusting Teach, watching instead the movement of the man in front of him. Controlled careful movement: a man of calculation, but not a man of action.

  Three yards apart, and still Shay could make nothing of the features under the hat.

  He stared into the mask nonetheless. ‘Have you travelled far, pilgrim?’

  ‘I have, and I’ve farther still to go.’ The voice was low, firm.

  ‘God and the King’s justice go with you.’

  ‘God save the King.’

  Among the mess of rocks, the masked figure selected one and sat warily, watching Shay. He waited for Shay to do the same.

  Shay gauged as best he could where the masked man’s confederate was – there was every chance the confederate had moved, but he had to seek advantage where he could – and sat down so that the masked man was between them.

  ‘You’ve come from. . .’ – he knew he’d get no precise answer – ‘overseas?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Into England. Now. An exceptional circumstance for the Committee, I imagine.’

  ‘The English have assassinated their King, Shay; we may fairly describe the times as exceptional.’

  Good boots – expensive; not hard worn. Cloak and hat meant nothing. Shay looked at the hands for a glimmer of rings in the last of the light, but saw nothing. Means of identification and distinction would be minimal.

  ‘How lies the land?’

  Shay tried to gauge the voice, through the mask. Not a young voice. But the man was not as old as he. Forty, perhaps. ‘The people are stunned, for now. Cowed. Preston and the risings at the same time – Colchester, Pontefract, Wales – they exhausted enthusiasm and material.’ The man was still and silent, waiting for him to finish. An intelligent man. ‘But the killing of the King shocked many. There’s discontent at the arrogance and impositions of the new regime. And the regime has its divisions: between some of the MPs and the soldiers; even in the Army, between moderates and the Levelling men.’

  ‘Risings? A new royal army?’

  ‘Not without something to rally to.’

  ‘So it will have to be another invasion.’

  ‘Yes. And not yet. Not this year.’

  The mask considered this, then nodded acceptance. ‘From Ireland?’

  Shay growled distaste. ‘Nothing good ever came out of Ireland.’

  ‘Scotland again, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The cloak, the mask and the hat were all but lost in the evening now. ‘The Scottish demands on religion are still too much for us – for His Majesty, that is.’

  ‘The politics of Scotland are in constant shift. A month or a year may bring a new party to the fore, offering a different bargain. And you and His Majesty may have to bend a little, if you want the kingdom back.’

  The shadow was silent. It was close to impertinence, and they both knew it.

  ‘His Majesty looks for a new champion in Scotland. Montrose is in Norway, but would return if called.’

  ‘Montrose.’ Shay’s voice was low, but there was question enough in the tone.

  ‘You do not esteem him?’

  ‘As a man, very highly. As a soldier, he is brave but reckless. And he is no kind of politician at all, and I think your man will need to be soldier and politician.’

  ‘We have Hamilton, too. He grieves for his beheaded brother.’

  ‘He may serve.’ Shay shifted on the uneven surface of the boulder. ‘There are no loyal men in Scotland: every man has served every master in his time, and the Hamiltons have been more slippery than most. When we can make a congruence between our interest and enough of the Scots, we’ll find the man easily enough. For now, we must make a little time. Keep Parliament and the Army distracted. Weaken them if we may. And for that, Ireland will serve well enough.’

  ‘You said nothing good ever came out of Ireland.’

  ‘Nor did it. Indeed, a great many good men went into Ireland and did not come out again. In the chaos of that stinking primitive swamp of an island, we may find enough to draw in Master Cromwell.’

  ‘Ormonde is still there. He made his peace with the Catholic Confederacy, and he fancies he can make that a military alliance in the royal interest.’

  Shay nodded. ‘Good. Then have him do it.’

  ‘An alliance with the Catholics?’ The masked man held up an instinctive hand, trying to block the onslaught. ‘The late King suffered for a decade to avoid so open a stand.’

  ‘The late King’s policy was not a success. We must find our friendships where we can.’

  ‘The Catholic Con
federacy is volatile; divided. Could we depend on them?’

  ‘The Catholic Confederacy is a squabbling snakepit of cut-throat barbarian peasants. I would depend on them for nothing but a knife in the back and an empty purse. But they must fear Cromwell and the puritans more than anything else. And that may bring them together and hold them together long enough to serve our turn.’

  Only a moment’s thought. ‘We will send as much to Ormonde. And you?’

  ‘I will do what I can to support the cause in Ireland and Scotland. I will ready our friends here for the King’s eventual return. And in the meantime I may work a little mischief to keep the Parliament and the Army off their balance.’

  It was fully night now. The mask was lost in the darkness, vision only hints of grey among black. There was a pause, and Shay thought he saw the man nod.

  ‘You’re the man for it. You have our trust and our blessing.’

  ‘My respects and my duty to the Committee and to the King.’

  ‘We are sure of it.’

  They stood.

  Shay said, ‘And you now. . .?’

  ‘Will be out of this island before dawn. Have you fully the threads of Astbury’s operation now?’

  A hollow grunt from Shay in the night. ‘I have the communications. I don’t yet know what game he was playing at the end. And. . . I do not yet have the book.’

  ‘You do not. . .?’ An aborted gasp through the mask. Words were unnecessary. The man took a breath, and said: ‘You will find it.’ It was not explicitly a command, and certainly not a reassurance. It was truth, because the alternative was inconceivable.

  Shay’s voice was low, solid, grim. ‘I will find it.’

  They each took a step backwards, cautious and uneasy in the gloom and the rough ground. Two half-bows, half-glimpsed, and the two men turned and disappeared from each other.