Traitor's Field (58 page)

Another long day, and Francis Ruce felt it in his shoulders as he rode, felt it in the jolts of his equally tired horse as it tramped stiff-legged through the evening.

I have deserved more than this.

A burned-out cottage ahead, an unpleasant outline against the field.

I don’t think I’ve slept easy these five years or more. Ten. Always between the lines. Always on the edge.

A shadow moving near the ruin?
Careful
. It was a lonely road. There had been attacks. Vicious locals; bitter starving peasants stunned by another lost harvest; scavenging deserters from any one of the armies that had crossed this land in the last few years. Everyone had a reason to steal these days, and no one had a reason not to kill.

I will survive, and I will survive with something to show for it.

The shadow broke from the edge of the building, and became a man. Ruce reached for his pistol.

‘Ruce!’ Ruce kept his hand on the pistol, pulled the horse up. ‘I’d have hoped for no one better.’ Ruce peered into the gloom. He knew the man, surely, by sight. ‘Come in here, will you? Need your help.’ A man of influence among the Generals. A man worth respecting, worth cultivating. But in the waist-high remnant of a doorway a weight smashing on the back of his neck and Ruce was stumbling and then his legs were kicked away and he dropped into the rubble, felt a hand driving his face into the ground, felt through his panic a blade at his throat. ‘Hands!’ A squawk of confusion. ‘Your hands behind you or I cut your throat!’ Now a knee pressing his head down, and his hands were quickly tied behind him, and he was wrenched face-up again, shoulders and elbows and hips ungainly and sore.

The man stood upright, and watched him. Ruce shuffled backwards to a sitting position against the slumped wall. Then the man was looming down at him, squatting close by, a knife in his hand.

A moment more, of thought. Then, ‘Ruce: you should know. You’re probably going to die tonight. At my hand.’ Ruce’s eyes wide, mouth gaping to speak and a hand was thrust into it and his head slammed back against the stone. ‘You should learn to speak when asked. Understand?’ A nod, and the hand was pulled away. ‘But know that when you speak, your life depends on it. Understand?’

Ruce nodded again, instinctive, but warier.

‘You’ve sold us, Ruce. Time and again. Tonight you’ll—’

‘I never—’ and the knife flashed forward and pierced his throat.

A prick merely, but Ruce froze in the shock.

Deliberately, the man pulled the knife back and shifted his grip, took Ruce’s collar in two hands and ripped downwards, baring the chest. Then he adjusted the knife again and, with the same deliberation, carved a shallow cut across Ruce’s breast, and Ruce gasped shrill and shocked.

‘You’ve sold us, Ruce. Time and again.’ This time the man stopped, and waited for the reaction. Ruce was gasping, cold, eyes wide. ‘You tell me. Everything, yes. Who you told. What you told.’ He flicked the knife up and caught the haft between finger and thumb and, casually, angled the blade forward and tapped Ruce on the nose.

And Ruce told him: a conversation in a brothel, years back, a man who knew everything about him, his needs, his weaknesses. Not a demand but a suggestion, a sharing of information to facilitate stalemate, fewer deaths.
How much did he offer to pay you?
Just expenses, and why shouldn’t I? And still the heavy face bored into him.
Who? Describe him?
Different men, no names, but they all seemed to know him. His mother. His debts. And had anyone truly looked after him all these years?

Shay watched him, tired. An ideal weakling. Vulnerable on so many points, and someone had known it.

How were you summoned? How were you met?

Simple codes, simple alerts. Anonymous meetings in alehouses and woodland clearings. Anonymous men; masked men.

A name. Give me a name, or you may die this night.

But Francis Ruce, shivering and weak-bladdered, could give no name.

And Mortimer Shay, short of time and frustrated, leaned forward and clamped his hand over the gabbling mouth again and cut the throat.

It bulged crimson and he watched it, bored, and wondered. 

Rachel read the
Mercurius Fidelis
sitting in the arbour in the flower garden, as if it were some precious secret of romance.

Either I want to shelter in this garden for ever, like some vestal virgin of horticulture, or I want the world of this news-sheet
. This was Shay’s world: the politics, the plots, the armies and the sieges. This news-sheet was him talking to her. He would, presumably, want her to care about the defiance of Edinburgh against the English Army. He was working to bring the Scottish Church and the Scottish leaders around in support of his King.

My King
. Those Scotsmen are the leaders of my cause now.

The news-sheet was ridiculous, of course. The portrait of Cromwell as some bewildered demon staggering around the Scottish countryside was presumably exaggerated. But then she remembered all the times soldiers had come to Astbury: the wilfulness, the damage, the feeling that there were no longer any limits to what might be about to happen; and she wondered about the women of Musselburgh and Dunbar.

She tried to imagine how Thurloe fitted in Cromwell’s rampaging organism. He seemed far too careful, too cerebral, too. . . gentle, to be part of the chaos of horses and cannons and big men in uniform and shouting that was her image of an army. Perhaps Cromwell used decent men like Thurloe to soften the image of his rule. Or perhaps Thurloe was just a convenient tool of Cromwell’s world – one who could write a letter, or pursue a case at law. Or put clever pressure on a family like the Astburys.

Or might it be the other way round? Might the Army be the tool of the clever men – a necessary tool to achieve the new kind of stability they desired? She wondered about a world ruled by Thurloes: thoughtful, surely. Principled, or merely indifferent?

He has a wife, I think
. She wondered about Mrs Thurloe. A dowdy breeder of the offspring of a clever man; or his clever partner, trading Greek quips in the parlour?

If Shay and his Scotsmen do not win, is that the kind of man I am supposed to marry?

William Seymour, grey hair bobbing behind him as he walked stiffly over the flagstones, heard his name from the shadows and turned to see the outline of two men on a bench. One rose and stepped to the edge of the light.

‘Shay. How do you?’

‘Well enough. How is the young King?’

Seymour preferred to move as little as possible, and did not see why Shay should not do the walking, but discretion overcame him and he stepped closer to the shadows. Miles Teach stood, respectful, but stayed back against the wall. ‘He is. . . a different sort of man to his father.’

‘That’s certainly true.’ Shay managed a heavy smile. ‘Poor Seymour. Your service has deserved more stability than this, I think.’

Seymour seemed to take it as licence to express his frustrations. ‘These people, Shay!’ His head came closer, and the cracked voice dropped further still. ‘Such a hotpot of politicking and religion as you never saw. The man Cromwell has advanced again and sent envoys to the Church leaders here offering negotiations. He knows their suspicions of the King; he knows our divisions. Yesterday’ – the voice was a shrill whisper – ‘the Church leaders demanded – demanded! – that the King sign a paper disowning the religion of his parents and restating his own support to the Scottish religious settlement.’

‘I heard as much. He’ll sign, I hope.’

Seymour’s eyes went wider still. ‘No, Shay! He will not. Young Charles cares nothing for his father’s beliefs, I think, but he has all of his father’s pride.’

‘He must be persuaded. Leslie’s army would simply disappear. If the Scottish leaders withdraw their support, we are lost.’

‘I know that!’ Seymour was spitting his frustration. He caught himself, hissed in a deep breath, and stared at Shay.

Shay gripped his narrow arm. ‘I understand. What a pit we’re in, eh?’ He stepped back. ‘Tell me if – No, let me offer now. I have a young man – Vyse, Bernard Vyse’s boy. A fine lad, and it’s time he got acquainted with the Court and his duties there. May I send him to assist you?’

Seymour thought for a moment, nodded, and turned and stalked uncomfortably away.

Teach, closer now, said: ‘Trouble?’

Shay, over his shoulder: ‘Perhaps. Cromwell knows our cracks and is pulling at them. The King must bow his head to these miserable Scotch faith-pedlars, or we can all go and live in permanent exile.’

T
O
M
R
I. S.,
AT THE
G
EORGE
,
IN
N
EWCASTLE