Traitor's Field (5 page)

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. Pontefract 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 listening.

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.