Traitor's Field (10 page)

‘I rather think the King decides such matters.’

‘I rather think the King should begin to listen to better advice.’

Seymour’s shoulders dropped. Eventually he nodded.

‘By all means check with the Committee. You will have channels of communication, no doubt.’

‘Be sure that I’ll check, Shay. Where is your Committee now, whoever they are? Fled with the rest?’

Shay shifted in the sand. ‘The Committee is everywhere and nowhere. I presume that most are abroad now. One or two in Scotland, perhaps.’ He looked up towards the town and the castle sitting over it. ‘None, I’d imagine, is here. Confinement does not sit naturally with the Committee.’

‘But you’re not sure where they are?’

‘I’m not sure
who
they are. I can hardly be sure where they are, can I? How does His Majesty?’

Seymour hesitated. Out on the water, two ducks were drifting with the flow, and his eye followed the movement. ‘He lives outside this world, Shay. I think he bears this waiting – this eternal, damned waiting – better than any normal man might. But the little indignities of confinement irritate him. The disrespects. The dependences. He is often peevish.’

Shay nodded. ‘Our misfortune in finding ourselves a Scottish papist for a King.’

‘His Majesty is no papist, Shay, and it’s treason to say it!’

‘Papists are lively fellows, in my experience, but fragile. Scotsmen are miserable but enduring. Either is perfectly tolerable, but they’re an ill combination.’

‘Shay—’

‘The waiting must continue.’

The voice had been immediately firm and unchallengeable. ‘We wonder whither it leads us.’

Shay shook his head in sudden intensity. ‘That’s for the priests, Seymour; the future – destiny. The King must just survive today – and he must do it every day. You must help him to it.’ Seymour shifted uneasily. ‘There is no alternative to the King! While he endures they must inevitably turn to him. If he endures, he wins.’

‘Easily said.’

‘The Army and the Parliament are different, Seymour, and they want different things. But for now, they each need the King. Easy enough for you, do you see? Merely by existing, the King tries and worsens the differences among his enemies.’ He snapped a glance towards the sentry, still a way off and indifferent. A rough smile. ‘Keep at it, Seymour. You’ve endured decades; you’ll manage a few weeks.’

Seymour nodded uncertainly. He too glanced towards the sentry, and instinctively lowered his voice. ‘Is there no chance of escape from here, Shay?’

‘I’m sure I could contrive three or four chances, if you gave me half an hour’s thinking on it. But I cannot advise it, Seymour.’

‘You cannot—’

‘As the situation stands today, there is not a strong military force in these islands for him to rally to. Even if there was, it would only unite his enemies, and we would have to depend on a grand military victory that shattered Cromwell once and for ever. These many years we have not found the General or the army to do it.’

‘France, then. Or Holland.’

‘If he escapes to the Continent he is never returning, Seymour. Know that. We would lose the kingdom for ever.’ A dark shake of the head. ‘Believe me, it is better as it is. Patience, old horse.’

Seymour’s face wrinkled uncomfortably. ‘And in the meanwhile? What do you do?’

‘I must take the measure of our friends in the provinces, and especially in Scotland.’

‘You hope for a new army in our cause?’

Shay shrugged. ‘Oh, armies are easy enough to come by, and Scottish ones are cheaper than most. Victories are a little harder. And the politics is harder still.’

‘What, then?’

‘Oh, we may do a little mischief yet. Between the soldiers and the politicals, the men of money and the men of God, the upsetters of the altars and the upsetters of all society. Between such a muddle of strong-believing men, we may cause a constant squabbling as will restore the King to his rightful place above them all.’

Seymour watched him doubtfully, and then let his focus drift out into the river and the fields beyond it.

Eventually the eyes drifted back. ‘Shay, do you really not know the names of the men behind you?’

Some flicker in Shay’s dark eyes, something old, something wise or something evil: ‘I have some ideas.’

‘I had been sure that Sir—’ but now Seymour found Shay’s hand reaching towards him, open. ‘What in heaven are you doing?’

‘Asking you for money, your honour. Your sentinel is approaching.’

‘What?’

‘Give me a coin.’

‘A coin?’ But he was reaching for his purse now, hearing slow footsteps crunching along the path behind him, and he thrust the first coin into Shay’s hand.

‘He’s still coming on. Turn, notice him, and then reassure him.’

‘When do I get my coin back?’

‘You don’t. Times are hard, Seymour. Fare you well.’

A new voice startled him, the sentry’s from over his shoulder, and closer than he’d imagined. ‘All well, your Lordship?’

Seymour turned, found the sentry ten paces away: ‘Oh – yes.’ Stepped towards him. ‘Yes, quite well.’

‘That fellow not bothering you?’

‘No. Just a fisherman. Pleasant to talk to someone new for once. Pitiful fellow, really. Only wants money.’

The sentry nodded, and drifted away again. Seymour turned back to Shay, but the bank was deserted. Out in the river, the little rowing boat was making steadily for mid-stream, the man at the oars pulling smooth and looking away over his shoulder towards the sea.

MERCURIUS FIDELIS

or

The hone
ſ
t truth written for every Engli
ſ
hman that cares to read it

From
M
ONDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
28.
to
M
ONDAY
, O
CTOBER
5. 1648.

In proud Pontefract, the gentlemen scurried hunched between the towers. Even on days when they weren’t attacking, Cromwell’s soldiers found it good sport to aim speculative musket balls over the walls, and periodically a patch of stonework would explode in fragments as a cannon found its range, blasting yellow shrapnel and dust over the defenders.

They were thinner gentlemen too, now, and sickly.

‘Halloo! Miles Teach!’ Miles Teach turned, ducked, and scrambled along the parapet. ‘You’ve been in the fray as usual.’

They crouched, heads close. ‘Their usual morning exercise. No trouble.’ Teach nonetheless brushed instinctively at his coat front, and again tried to wipe his grimed face, hearing his breaths coming hard. It wasn’t that he felt ill; just permanently tired. Poor sleep; poor rations. He knew the signs.

‘How do they at the east wall?’

‘Well enough. Buckerfield may be a fool, but he’s brave enough.’ He tapped the other’s chest – easy enough in their clumsy proximity – where something bulged. ‘What news from the world, Paulden?’

‘I’ll show you.’ A dry grin through the dust. ‘He’s written again.’

Teach looked up. ‘Has he indeed? We have a friend in the enemy camp, it seems.’