Traitor's Field Page 3

  And now these two London men had appeared. Sombre, black-coated men; something to do with checking or collecting the fines of delinquent Royalists like Astbury.

  Proper puritan clerks, the pair of them; quiet and superior. The old man had stopped talking at last, and was watching him anxiously. Just a faint calculating arrogance in the eyes.

  The Captain wrestled wearily with his bitterness. Lord, what wouldn’t I give for a warm companionable bed? ‘Sir, these few supplies we have commandeered are deemed essential for the functioning of the Army; you’ll be given tickets of receipt as usual.’ And much good will they do you. He heard the words falling from him as if from a distance. The old man was about to interrupt again. ‘This land is at war! Rebels are up in half the counties of England. Your little luxuries are less important than the survival of the state.’

  That had stung. ‘Luxuries?’ The sneer was emerging onto the face again. ‘How—’

  ‘And I’ll gladly get your friend in London to come and explain that to you. Or Oliver Cromwell himself, how would you like that?’

  Lord, I am so weary.

  Unnoticed, one of the London men was standing beside him. The voice was a low firm murmur, inaudible to the others. ‘Captain, if we need General Cromwell, I’m sure I could pass a message onward when I’m in London.’ The Captain started to scowl. You smug, miserab— But there was no attempt at superiority in the face of the man in black. The large eyes looked rather sad. ‘Otherwise, perhaps we’ll leave the politics for today. I don’t envy you, having to settle these men somewhere tonight. And they should have had enough time with the silverware now.’

  The Captain managed a heavy smile, nodded slowly. He glanced briefly at the old man, a curt nod to him, and turned and left.

  The man in black waited, still, listened to the door close. A solemn nod to the two women, and then he stepped towards Sir Anthony Astbury. But for a moment his glance snapped back to the younger woman, stunned and wild and glaring at him.

  Night brought a brief illusion of security to Astbury House. Nothing could be seen from the windows, not even the ominous trees. For a moment, instinctively, Rachel Astbury felt that this smaller existence, behind its locks and bars, was warmer and safer. But the night brought the wind, roaming the estate in the darkness, and stirred up faint animal noises somewhere close by, and the endless creaking of the doors and timbers of the house. In the darkness the family was smaller, and more alone, and the threat outside vaster and less knowable.

  After the departure of the soldiers, and the two men from London, her father had at first contrived a little triumphalism. But his pretence at having seen off the intrusions of the world was as transparent to himself as to his daughters and servants, and he quickly relapsed into peevishness. A silent supper, and a brusque prayer, and her father had gone to his study. By some unspoken agreement, and knowing that he would not want company, his two daughters followed him regardless. They sat out of his eye-line, very close together, Mary reading and Rachel sewing.

  Astbury House was the tiniest fragments of light and sound in the darkness. Scattered candles in gloomy rooms; the rhythmic sweep of pages under Mary’s fingers, and the restless rustling of papers under her father’s; occasionally the closing of a door by a servant somewhere else in the building. Outside the wind, and the patrolling birds. If the house could hold its breath, maybe it might not be noticed.

  Three mighty hammerings barked into the gloom. The front door; and the knocking was still echoing around the house as Anthony Astbury’s head reared up wild-eyed.

  Perhaps it had been a trick of each of their imaginations. A clumsy servant. A thunderstorm. A heart.

  For a moment Astbury House perched in silence.

  Two more great slams at the door, and they all three flinched.

  Anthony Astbury had to go. A servant would open the door, but he had to be there. Dragging his brittle courage from its hiding places, Astbury stood and walked on uncomfortable feet to the study door and so into the hall. He threw one glance at his daughters as he passed, accusing them of forcing him to confront the limits of himself.

  Rachel found that her fists were locked tight, the material clenched to a rag in them. I do not know how long I can live like this. She looked up, and found Mary watching her.

  ‘I have to see.’

  Mary nodded. They both stood. By the time they reached the door between study and hall, their father and one of the servants were at the front door, each with a lantern. The two old faces shone and shadowed as they moved.

  Then the servant was grappling with the bolts. They heard the hard metal reports as the house loosened its armour, and there was a sudden rush of noise as the storm charged in through the door, throwing the servant back against the wall still clinging to the latch. The wind buffeted back and forth on the doorstep, and they saw their father peering into the night.

  After a wary moment, he ventured a step forward, and lifted the lantern higher.

  ‘Great God!’ he said, and the words rang shrill into the storm. ‘Is it you?’

  Any reply from whoever was hidden outside was lost in the noise, but then a shadow had stepped forward over the doorstep and was helping the servant shoulder the door closed. A hat, a broad back, high boots flickered in the lantern light. Suddenly the roar of the storm was silenced with the door’s slam and the falling latch. The bolts slid heavily back into place.

  The shadowed stranger had said something else, and the Astbury sisters saw their father’s face turn to them and say with unnecessary volume, ‘We’d better talk in my study.’

  They understood, and stepped quickly forwards into the hall and aside.

  At last they saw the stranger, as Anthony Astbury led him past them and into the study. A tall man – taller than their father, anyway, and broad with it. An older man, surely; but his physical strength and straight back made him younger. Thick grey hair, as far as they could guess in the distorting glow of the lantern, and the face was ancient and hard.

  The stranger was like an old rock, and as he passed them pressed flat against the hall panelling he looked at each of the sisters with unconcealed interest. There was something alive in the dark eyes and the mouth, though they gave no hint of a smile.

  On a framework of pikes and the lower branches of a slumped oak, the servants had contrived a rough shelter of blankets and cloaks and scavenged sheets.

  Under it, huddled in their own cloaks, three men wriggled fitfully for more comfortable positions among the oak roots, and watched in the lantern light as the material above them grew sodden, bulged down, and began to drip.

  ‘Where is Traquair?’

  ‘I did not see him, your Grace.’

  James, First Duke of Hamilton pushed himself up against the trunk, shifted his backside irritably, and watched the lantern.

  ‘You said you know this place?’

  ‘No, your Grace. I heard a name mentioned – a village. I didn’t know it.’

  The rain flicked heavy and incessant on the blankets, and somewhere out in the night there were the shuffles and mutters of unhappy horses and soldiers.

  ‘Your Grace, they say that Traquair may have. . . may have taken his own road.’

  ‘Deserted, you mean?’ The word stung oddly in the Scottish mouth.

  ‘Surely not, your. . .’ What was the point? ‘Perhaps an hour or two back along the road, your Grace.’

  A grunt. ‘Clever Traquair. But maybe we’ll prove him wrong, eh?’

  ‘Well spoke, your Grace.’

  ‘Herefordshire is in arms; Lingen fights for us there, didn’t you say? We will join him.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. We’ve not had word of him since Chester, but. . .’

  The Duke’s shoulder had begun to chill. He shifted it a fraction, and felt it clammy. He forced himself not to look at it, not to think of the trunk running with rain. He would hold this position until the end of the conversation.

  ‘Not Pontefract?’

  ‘No, sir. Pont
efract holds out, but it’s too risky. We’ll not make it.’

  Hooves heavy in the muffled muddy world outside, and furtive calls.

  A murmur through the damp shelter. ‘General Middleton? A rider, General.’

  Middleton had been silent. Now he glanced at the Duke, and scowled. An undignified scrambling, and he pushed his way out of the shelter on hands and knees, swearing at the water on his neck.

  The Duke, head a little forward, stared at the damp wall where Middleton had gone, watching through it, straining for his return. The things I have suffered for Charles Stuart.

  The General was back within a minute, a sudden shuffling beast in the gloom of the shelter, shaking head and shoulders like a dog. He brushed the water from his face and rewrapped himself in his cloak before he spoke.

  ‘Sir Henry. . .’ – he saw the anxiety in the Duke’s face, and his shoulders and voice dropped – ‘Sir Henry Lingen is beaten, your Grace. On the same day as yourself.’

  The Duke’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed his head back against the trunk. ‘Then Herefordshire is lost to us also.’

  ‘It is lost to us, your Grace.’

  Outside, the shapes of indeterminate beasts drifted unhappily in the darkness. Across the unmixed black of the land, the faint foggy lantern glow coming through the drenched blankets floated in the void.

  Mary and Rachel Astbury ambushed their father when he was ten feet short of his bedroom, two translucent ghosts in their nightshirts, and his surprise was immediately irritation: ‘I told you—’

  Mary had retreated a little, but Rachel was still square in front of him. ‘Father, who is that man? What’s happening?’

  He focused properly on her face, the beautiful eyes angry, the skin glowing in the candlelight, and then on her older sister beside her, dark and watchful.

  ‘I have news.’ He tried again. ‘I have sad news, girls. My brother – my brother George is dead.’ He looked into their eyes again, wondering if he was supposed to say more. He found that each of his hands was being held. He tried to form more words, swallowed them down again with difficulty. ‘He was killed in a great battle, for the King.’

  He pulled his hands away, touched a white slender shoulder with each, and stepped back.

  ‘I’m sorry, Father.’ Mary.

  ‘I’d rather not—’

  ‘Who is that man, Father?’

  Rachel again, of course.

  Sir Anthony Astbury gulped for words. ‘I regret to have to say that he is your kin,’ he managed eventually. The eyes fell for an instant. ‘Kin to your poor late mother, at least.’

  He could see the surprise in their eyes, the interest. ‘Pay heed to me, girls! That man will not stay here long; I shall see to it. You are not to speak to him, nor give him opportunity to speak to you, nor on any account to allow him to be alone with you.’

  With his sudden vehemence, their interest had become bewilderment. ‘To your beds now. In the morning all will seem easier.’ He was talking as much to himself. He looked up, and was visibly irked to find his daughters still gazing at him. They turned quickly to go.

  ‘He—’ They stopped, and the two faces turned back to their father; two re-conjurings of his beautiful young wife, come back in the storm to haunt him, along with her strange and troubled family history.

  ‘He is Sir Mortimer Shay.’ The voice dropped to a mutter. ‘Mortimer Shay in England again, and in our lives.’

  The Groom of the Stool. Early in his reign, His Majesty, being a less convivial man than his father, had decreed that he would be accompanied at his most intimate proceeding by only one of his attendants.

  William Seymour, Marquess of Hertford, was accordingly alone with the King as he knelt to complete the refastening of the King’s breeches.

  His Majesty, Seymour had learned – and this was the subtlety that had made Seymour the most trusted of the King’s attendants – did not like to receive ill news when with many men, not caring to have his vulnerabilities or frustrations observed, this having a tendency to exacerbate his blush and his hesitancy of speech. His Majesty did not like to be in any distress of mind before or during his intimate proceedings, believing this disruptive to the good rhythms of the body and thus detrimental to the health.

  So it has to be now, then. Seymour, still on one knee, held his head bowed for an extra moment. Still on his knees, he shuffled backwards a pace and made an exaggerated show of checking the rearrangement of the King’s garments. Inconceivable that His Majesty could be allowed to seem in the slightest way foolish. Then he stood and stepped back.

  He held out a bowl of warmed water, and the King carefully washed his hands, the small pale fingers exploring each other slowly and reflectively in a rare moment away from the world. Imprisoned by the father; opposed the son; rejoined him in time for his defeat and incarceration.

  He held out a towel, and the King carefully dried his hands. The wrong side on every occasion, and fate has decreed that I, that have scorned this family over two generations, shall at the last be closer to Charles Stuart than any man living, and tell the hours of his misfortunes.

  He held out a smaller bowl, of rose water, and the King carefully dabbled his fingers in it, each hand in turn and each tip in turn flickering in and out of the liquid. The King’s head is bowed still, watching his own fingers.

  He held out a new towel, and the King carefully touched his fingers on it. The King likes to believe that he is alone, even when he is not.

  ‘Your Majesty.’ The King looked up. The King should speak first. The King knows that Seymour would only intrude in this way if he needed to impart news privately.

  The wide sad eyes gazed at Seymour. ‘Your Majesty, I regret that we have ill tidings from the north.’

  From an inn in Leeds, the Sign of the Boar, riders went south and north and east to the sea with messages. The messages were addressed to four different men in four different cities: to John Fenniman, of London; to Jacob Hoy, of Edinburgh; to Pierre Mazzini, of Paris; and to Pieter de Gucht of Amsterdam.

  Shay had hesitated over London. It seemed unlikely that he would get a reply from London. But one never knew.

  The message was the same in each case. The writer, Francis Padget, was interested in acquiring a copy of the Codex Walther. A friend of his, Mortimer Shay, had once recommended the recipient as a man who might be able to assist him in such matters. If the recipient was able to oblige him, he should reply to Francis Padget at the same address in Leeds.

  Francis Padget did not exist. John Fenniman, Jacob Hoy, Pierre Mazzini and Pieter de Gucht did not exist either. But there were other men in those four cities who, if they still lived, and if the circumstances allowed, would be alert for messages addressed to those names, and would be able to provide proofs of identity sufficient to receive the messages. Men who would know the real and dramatic meaning of a reference to the Codex.

  Mortimer Shay did exist, and he would be waiting for a reply.

  In the first pale whisper of dawn, a short, stout man kneels in a copse of trees near the town of Colchester. Again he looks all around him. Again he empties his mind and concentrates all attention in his ears.

  The cold is a hollow ache through his body, scalding his cheeks and his hands. The promise of warmth is magnified by the parallel promise of safety. The longbow in his left hand he can explain – a rustic eccentricity – don’t a man deserve a rabbit if he can get it, in these bad times? The arrow in his right hand will get him hanged.

  Ahead, vague in the grass, he can see Parliamentarian sentries wrapped in dew-covered cloaks and drowsy. Beyond them, two hundred yards off, loom the walls of Colchester. His breaths come fast and short – fierce puffs of steam in the morning.

  An arrow from a longbow in even moderately competent hands will cover those two hundred yards and could cover as many again. The two hundred will do, and precise accuracy is not necessary. Again the slow, staring perusal all around to his left and then to right. Again the ferocious intensity of lis
tening.

  The only movement in the ghostly grey scene, he rolls his shoulders, sets his knees solid, and with one fluid motion fits arrow against string and pulls the string back in a mighty heave until the feathers tickle his ear, holds – for pride, for one long breath – and then the arrow is away with a hiss into the dawn.

  A faint rattle as the arrow hits the town wall, but he does not hear it: frozen in the posture, then again the look around, again the listening, and he is away at a crouch through the undergrowth, breathing free and dreaming of breakfast.

  Soon after – the treetops are silvering, but the army of Parliament still sleeps in grey – a small door opens in a shadow in a cleft in the walls of Colchester. A figure stands still, and watchful – first for any sign of life from the besieging army, then scanning the ground nearby. The arrow was aimed at this point, and he sees it almost immediately. Another check for movement nearby, four purposeful strides and he has the arrow, and is back at the door and safe inside. The door has been open for considerably less than a minute.

  He waits until he is back in his lodging room, the arrow tucked into his coat, before unwrapping the message from the arrow shaft.

  Five words only are on the paper, and something dies in his hungry gut.

  Again he is hurrying through the town, and now its chaos offers him only tragedy rather than defiant hope. Crumbled walls, burned houses, a hollow-cheeked woman staring wild at him, the blanket-covered mounds of dead, the stench, two soldiers cornering a cat, a dead-end – yesterday there was a road here, and now it’s blocked by a mess of rubble and timber – a smear of blood on stone where some other animal has been caught and killed, a listless soldier trudging nowhere, a forlorn flag.

  He has not heard conversation on the street for many days. There is nothing to say, and other people’s faces offer only despair, and shame.

  The sentries know him, and don’t care any more, and soon he is knocking at a door, entering, handing the paper to a dapper dark man interrupted while pulling on his boots. The man takes the paper but still watches him.