Exile's Return (3 page)

Longley sighed. ‘I've not been back since my own escape from Worcester. Is it really eight years?' He took a swig from his tankard, brushing foam from his well-groomed moustache. ‘I long to return, but it is not quite so simple, my impetuous friend. We must see the King legally restored by the will of the people. Until such time we continue to bide here. Exile teaches you patience.'

Daniel smiled. ‘Patience has never been one of my virtues, my lord. I have paid my dues and I am no longer a raw youth hungry for his first taste of battle. The simple fact is, I want to go home.'

Giles studied him for a long moment. ‘Longley will do … and no, you're not a raw youth. I can only guess at what you have endured over the last eight years. But why would you risk going back now? Why not wait?'

The questions surprised Daniel. It had not occurred to him to kick his heels within plain sight of England.

He considered his response. ‘Let me just say I have some unfinished business.'

‘Ah,' Longley's moustache twitched. ‘I can only guess at what that means.'

Daniel studied the older man. ‘I saw my father murdered in cold blood on the step of his own home, my lord. I cannot forget. I intend to find the man who gave that order.'

Longley's mouth tightened and he set his beer down on the sticky table. ‘I counsel you now. The King does not want to see more blood spilled. If there is to be any reckoning, it will be at his hand. Who is the man you seek?'

Daniel shook his head. ‘It is none of your concern, my lord. I came here seeking news of my brother, no other reason. No one has yet provided me with an answer.'

Longley's fingers beat a tattoo on the worn and stained tabletop. He sighed heavily. ‘I am sorry it falls to me to break the news, but your brother is dead.'

Daniel had long since learned to school his face to betray nothing, but his jaw tightened and the word seemed to come through stiffened lips. ‘Worcester?'

Longley shook his head. ‘No. Kit Lovell survived Worcester. He may even have been a prisoner like yourself … but he managed to get away. I came across him in Paris the year after Worcester, but he couldn't settle to an exile's life and went back to London. He kept company with others like himself. I believe they used to gather in a hostelry in the Old Bayly. What was it called … oh, yes, the Ship Inn. How could I forget – they called it the Ship Inn Plot.'

‘The Ship Inn plot?'

Longley waved a hand. ‘That was one. Kit got himself involved in several plots to overthrow Cromwell and restore the King. None had the consent of the King, and mostly they were so foolish that even Cromwell laughed and set the plotters free.' He frowned. ‘But even the Lord Protector's sense of humour failed when John Gerard brought over a French assassin. They may have succeeded had it not been for a traitor in their midst who betrayed them. Your brother was one of those caught and hanged.'

The breath left Daniel's body at the bald words “caught and hanged
”
and he looked away. His invincible brother, Kit, dead at the end of a hangman's rope – an ignoble end.

After all the years of believing Kit dead, it was as if he had died all over again. On a subliminal level, he realised now, there had always been a hope that Kit had survived, but now a hundred thoughts crashed together. What had become of his grandfather … his mother … his sister?

‘Hanged?' he managed to say with a voice that cracked with emotion. ‘When?'

Longley frowned. ‘It would have been the summer of '54.'

Daniel cleared his throat. ‘Another wrong to right when the King is restored, my lord?'

‘Indeed,' Longley replied. ‘Those who died in the King's name will be pardoned and those, like me, who had everything stolen from them will have it returned, but what we remember so fondly may be sorely tested by reality,' Longley said. ‘What of your home? Cheshire, I believe?'

‘Eveleigh Priory, about five miles out of Chester, but as you say, the word “home” is an illusion, my lord. Parliament's men, led by a man by the name of Tobias Ashby, destroyed it in '48. My mother and sister were living in a few surviving rooms, reliant on Kit for whatever money he could spare.' He paused and shook his head. ‘With my brother dead, I have no idea what has become of my family.'

Longley's moustache twitched. ‘Have you had no contact with them?'

Daniel shook his head. ‘No. While I was plying my dubious trade as a privateer, I considered it prudent to leave my mother and sister in the belief I was probably dead. How many times can you ask your family to grieve for one person?'

Longley considered him for a long moment. ‘Why would your family have believed you dead?'

Daniel switched his gaze to a far corner of the room. ‘They sent me to Barbados,' he said. ‘How many return from that hellhole?'

Longley frowned, and probably would have continued his interrogation had it not been for the appearance of Sir Edward Hyde, pushing his way through the patrons to where they sat in their dark corner.

‘You were not easy to find,' Hyde complained as he sat down, unbidden, and summoned the tap boy for another jar of ale.

‘I wasn't aware you were looking for us?' Longley leaned back in his chair and picked up his ale.

‘The King has a mission for you, Lovell,' Hyde said without preamble.

Daniel looked at the man. ‘But the King knows nothing of me. Why would he entrust me with a mission?'

Hyde's moustache twitched. ‘Whatever else the King may be, he is a shrewd judge of character. Your brother had certain talents and there is a hope that maybe you have inherited them.' He glanced at Longley. ‘You've told him?'

Longley nodded.

Hyde's mouth tightened. ‘You'll hear stories about your brother, so be prepared.'

Longley raised a hand. ‘Not now, Ned … '

Hyde glared at him. ‘Why not now? It's better he is prepared, is it not?'

Daniel looked from one to the other. ‘What stories?'

‘There are those who believe he may have been in the employ of Cromwell,' Hyde said. ‘In fact, he may have been the one to betray Gerard and the others to Thurloe.'

Daniel pushed his chair back from the table, a white spark of anger flaring in his breast. ‘Kit? A traitor? Never! He was a king's man to the bone.'

Hyde waved him back to his seat. ‘Calm yourself. I cannot say with certainty if there is truth to the stories; I merely repeat what some who were closer to the events believe.'

‘If he were indeed a traitor, why would they hang him?' Daniel glanced at Longley.

‘Unlike his fellow conspirators, his execution was private, conducted in the grounds of the Tower itself. No one can say with certainty that Kit Lovell died at the end of a rope,' Hyde replied.

Daniel shook his head as the enormity of what Hyde implied sunk in. It seemed impossible that his brother, the man he had known all his life would turn his coat, but if it were true, could Kit still be alive? Coming here had raised more questions than it had answers.

‘Enough about your brother. I told you we have a commission for you.' Hyde dismissed the fate of Kit Lovell with a wave of his hand.

‘You know nothing about me,' Daniel repeated.

Hyde glanced at Longley, who shrugged.

‘What we know is that, like your brother, you are dead, are you not, Master Lovell? According to the official stories, you were sent to Barbados where you died of a fever.'

So that was the story Outhwaite had put out.

‘Every second prisoner died of fever,' Daniel said.

‘But you didn't. You escaped, and I am curious as to how a dead man is sitting here having an ale with us on a chilly night in the Low Countries.'

Daniel looked from one man to the other. ‘I told you. I escaped … I was rescued by French privateers … that is all.'

Hyde shrugged. ‘It makes no difference. Since Cromwell's death the mood in England has changed. The time is right for the King to return but this, as you can understand, is no simple matter. There has been a group of men operating in secret with the King's commission. They call themselves the Sealed Knot but they have been relatively ineffective since Penruddock's uprising back in '55. Earlier this year the King issued a second commission. Part of that commission was to organise simultaneous uprisings across the countryside, but the reach of the spy network set up by John Thurloe is long and we may as well have set up a town crier in the centre of London. The uprising in Cheshire was quickly defeated and unfortunately one of our key supporters, James Ashby –'

Daniel started and Hyde looked at him, his eyes narrowing. ‘You know the man?'

Daniel shook his head. ‘My pardon, I recognise the name Ashby, but the man I knew wore the uniform of Parliament.'

‘Oh, you mean Colonel Tobias Ashby? A cousin, I believe. He has done well in the favour of Oliver Cromwell.' He shook his head, his mouth tightening. ‘He commanded the martyred King's escort on the day of his murder.'

Tobias Ashby, that hard man of the Parliamentary forces who had issued the order to his men to shoot down Thomas Lovell in cold blood.

Murder and Tobias Ashby seemed to have much in common.

‘Who is the Ashby to whom you refer?' Daniel changed the subject.

‘James Ashby. You may know him as the Earl of Elmhurst of Charvaley Castle in Lancashire.'

Daniel frowned. He had vague recollections of his father talking about Elmhurst but he could not remember meeting the man himself.

Hyde shrugged. ‘He gave some nominal support to the King's cause during the wars, but rumour is he was equally as forthcoming to those who came on behalf of Parliament. Whatever his true feelings, his home at Charvaley survived intact and unmolested. Like many we will encounter in the next few months, who trim their cloth to the wind, after the death of Cromwell, James Ashby professed his loyalty to the King, and being in a position of some influence and power in the north, the King named him in his commission. A few months ago his men captured a consignment of coin bound for York. Charvaley was used as the hiding place. It was to have been passed on to our agents, but Ashby was taken before the handover could be affected and we believe the coin is still at Charvaley.'

‘How much?' Daniel enquired.

‘Four hundred new-minted Unites.'

Daniel let out a low whistle. A gold Unite was worth over twenty shillings. ‘Such a sum could buy a deal of loyalty,' he said. ‘Do those sitting in Whitehall know that Elmhurst has the coin?'

Hyde cleared his throat. ‘We think Elmhurst may have tried to turn his cousin, Tobias Ashby, to the King's cause. As a result, it is likely that Tobias Ashby knows or suspects that the stolen coin may be at Charvaley.'

‘If so, he misjudged his cousin. Tobias Ashby is certainly the man who denounced Elmhurst to the authorities,' Longley put in.

‘And James Ashby did not protest his innocence and hand over the coin? Surely that would have earned him a reprieve from execution,' Daniel said.

‘It would have availed him very little. During the taking of the coin, a personal friend of General Lambert's was killed. Lambert made it known that an example had to be set.' Hyde paused. ‘I have been informed that Elmhurst died yesterday.'

Longley looked up. This was evidently news to him.

‘We received the news only an hour ago,' Hyde replied in answer to Longley's unspoken question.

‘Then what is it you think I can do?' Daniel enquired.

Hyde snorted. ‘Elmhurst had few close friends but he has left behind a mistress, a woman by the name of Agnes Fletcher. She is currently lodging at the sign of the Blue Boar with Elmhurst's children. She is your key to Charvaley and the location of the King's gold. You have a pretty face, Lovell, use it.'

Daniel laughed. ‘You put a lot of faith in me, Hyde. I am not possessed of a long history of charming the location of hidden treasure out of ladies. I am rather better at holding a knife to their throats.'

Hyde shrugged. ‘If you think that might work.'

Longley spluttered into his ale. ‘Hyde!'

Daniel drummed his fingers on the table. He cared not a jot for the fate of the late Earl or the missing gold, but were these men offering him a means to an end? It would be sufficient reward to look into the eyes of Tobias Ashby just before he killed him – as Ashby had killed his father – in cold blood and unarmed.

‘And what do I get if I am successful?' Daniel enquired.

Hyde recoiled as if Daniel had made an importunate suggestion. ‘You mean a reward?'

Daniel narrowed his eyes. ‘I have seen my home destroyed, my father murdered, and in the last eight years I have endured prison, torture, enslavement and worse in the King's name. I am done with all causes except my own. If I am to undertake this mission, it will not be for love of the King's cause alone.'

Hyde considered him for a long moment. ‘Find the King's gold, my friend, and you will not find His Majesty ungrateful. He does not forget his friends.'

Daniel leaned forward. ‘Curiously, I felt somewhat forgotten when I was lying in chains in Barbados.'

Hyde harrumphed and Longley interposed. ‘Lovell, we understand that you may hold little love for the cause, but your assistance will hasten the process. If we can recover the gold left in Elmhurst's possession, we will see the King restored within months.'

Daniel looked from one to the other. ‘Very well, but I would see full pardons for myself – and my late brother – and a restoration of lands and title, if they have been seized, as the price of my assistance.'

Hyde huffed out a breath as if he had been holding it in anticipation of Daniel's response. ‘Of course, of course. Consider that done, my friend. There is a ship leaving Ostend on tomorrow night's tide. Be on it.'

Daniel flashed the man a hard, contemptuous look. ‘I take no orders from you, Hyde. I am nobody's to command, not anymore.'