Traitor's Field

by Robert Wilton

  ‘The siege of Pontefract? The possibility of using the Levellers? You were scornful, I think.’

  ‘It seems nonsense. The fancy of a simpleton. I’ve taken it as useful inspiration, nothing more – just a provocation to unsettle our enemies. But again, George was not a simpleton. So I want to know what he was planning – or what he feared.’

  His head swung round to her. ‘You tell me about him.’

  It surprised her, and she sat up straighter. ‘I think he cared about his duty very much. He worried that he was not the man he was supposed to be, and he worked diligently to compensate for this.’ Shay nodded, reflectively. ‘There’s more. He could be very stubborn – very proud. At the end, he wasn’t just worried about. . . about whatever he was worried about.

  He was convinced by something – determined to prove himself against those who doubted him.’

  He considered this. Then he nodded, and returned to the paper in his lap. He put it aside, and picked up another, and immediately the heavy face rumpled.

  Rachel saw it. ‘A reversal on the battlefield?’

  ‘A printer has died.’ He looked at her; had George slipped so gently into these confidences? ‘And yes. An inconvenience. An additional journey for me. New arrangements.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He jumped from a battlement. Killed himself.’

  The shock flared blatant on her face. ‘What must have been in his mind, to want to do that?’

  But Shay was lost in the paper, and Rachel could only watch his grim absorbed face, and wonder at his world.

  . . . Allgood Haseldine, Printer, died in custody at the Castle, of his own doing. Haseldine was well-known for a compromiser and sometimes a pen for hire, and his printing had oftentimes trod close to sedition. Finally there were found proofs enough that he was printing secretly the Royalist news-sheet called Mercurius Fidelis, and he was arrested on that charge. On his first night of confinement, let to walk one hour, he jumped from the Castle walls unto immediate death. It is said he had a wife.

  [SS C/T/50/7]

  It was a curiosity at the end of a list of administrative trivia from Oxford, a sorry little tragedy buried in a commonwealth of broken families and broken minds, and Thurloe wondered at it.

  First he wondered because this was now his world: the bureaucratic routines of the state; reports from adjutants and magistrates and village constables; little facts and little deaths; interrogations.

  Then he wondered at Haseldine the printer, and why he would throw himself to his death rather than face the next hours or minutes of his life. Buried in his reckoning was an assumption of brutality in interrogations at Oxford, presumably well-known or at least well-rumoured among men like this printer. Did he simply fear pain – fear the humiliations of weakness and the collapse of his body in the presence of other men? Or was there something he was so determined not to reveal, some cause to which he was so committed, that he would chose death rather than risk it?

  Underground printers weren’t uncommon: some were truly unknown; some known and tolerated, monitored. In the last year such men had turned out edition after edition of the late King’s Eikon, his book of self-justification and reflection. Those who were tracked were questioned, fined, perhaps imprisoned. But this?

  ‘Matthew!’ Thurloe now had a subordinate clerk to assist him and do his bidding, and earnest Matthew was at his side in seconds. Each time Thurloe used and relished his new little authority, it as quickly embarrassed him. He stood, trying vaguely to blunt the hierarchy.

  What must it be like to launch yourself into space, knowing it means destruction? To want that destruction?

  ‘Matthew, there’s a Royalist news-sheet – Mercurius Fidelis. Can we get copies of it?’

  There was lily of the valley starting to bloom at the edge of the wood now, the little white caps bobbing demurely as if ashamed of their poison. Our Lady’s Tears, old Mrs Jacob had used to called it and, stiff-fingered and shooing the Astbury girls away, she’d gathered it for the herbalist every spring until she died. The symbol of Christ’s coming; the symbol of the possibility of hope.

  There were crocuses out too, clustering around Rachel’s feet as she walked back towards the house, and dusty blue like the sky.

  Mortimer Shay was gone again, southward first and then northward, he had said. With him went her connection with the world of war and politics beyond Astbury; with him went the darker shadows of life, leaving it a paler, blander thing.

  Shay is fighting for my future. What is my future – if I am not to be the spinster of this forgotten green island adrift from the world?

  Mary wrote regularly. Mary was comfortable and content. Mary had the life she wanted. Mary sounded deader and a little trapped.

  I want to live.

  Marriage – or men, at least, for a start.

  She conjured again a picture of her father’s generation at her age, a tableau drawn from memories of comments by her father, Uncle George and before that her mother. A dancing world of wildness, of sex, of pleasure. She tried to insert Mortimer Shay – tried to imagine a younger, leaner, lither Shay – the wild Shay of her father’s fears, not the ominous, implacable hulk who now haunted Astbury.

  Will Shay re-create that world for me?

  His wife was still alive somewhere. The cleverest woman of her age, Father had said. It wasn’t clear whether the tone of disapproval was at her having married Shay, or having been clever. Rachel wanted to meet Lady Shay.

  Rachel wanted to be the brilliant centre of a brilliant Court.

  Is that what Shay fights for? For his own youth again?

  Shay fights; and that is all.

  TO MR I. S., AT THE ANGEL, IN DONCASTER

  Sir,

  It has taken me these months to overcome my alarm at our attempted meeting, and in truth that alarm has often times persuaded me that I must not continue this correspondence. I mean no disrespect to you, Sir, but this world of shadows and threats has wearied me quite to my core and I would abandon all things that speak to me of it.

  But it is a world to which I am bound, and since we have but one life we are bound to live it as we find it, and, sensible of my discourtesy in so abruptly breaking off our meeting, and sensible too of the gap in our correspondence, I have found it meet that I should write again.

  My apologies to you therefore, good Sir, and my hopes that you will understand my trials and that this finds you no worse than when I saw you.

  First, a word about that unfortunate incident at Newmarket. By way of background I should say there are – as I think I have indicated – some men among the partisans of the Royal interest who believe that any alliance, even were it with the Levellers, would be a good alliance if it would advance the cause. Indeed they believe that they have found among the Levelling men some who reciprocate their belief that a mutual accord might somehow be possible. It seems so improbable to me, and yet they are in earnest, and the attacks by the Army last year on the Levellers in its ranks, and the consequent weakening of the Leveller interest, have only made them more determined to be proved right. They are become most heated about this plot, as they are about any scheme that seems to offer the hope of advancing the cause by sudden and surprising means, and those of us who are doubtful, or, as we would say, more prudent, are often cursed for faint-hearts and waverers. These are the men who were in contact with one or more individuals of the Leveller persuasion among the Army in Doncaster – around the Colonel Rainsborowe of whom you wrote.

  One of these is a most hot-tempered fellow, and suspicious, and you must understand my shock when, on walking into the inn at Newmarket, I saw his face across the room. His volatility of character extends, I regret, into a predisposition to gamble, and with hindsight I apprehend that this alone may have placed him there on that day, but in my state of mind I could only guess at the most bewildering and alarming explanations, of great suspicion of me personally, and so I confess that my spirit failed me and I fled.

  Meant
imes, the life that I try to lead as a dutiful Christian takes me northwards, into Scotland. The Royal cause is rallying there – every sympathetic house from Oxford to the border is alive with enthusiasm for what the year may bring – and I have found some little responsibilities on the fringes of those who serve it, and so trudge thither with a heart not blithe but as faithful as I may stir it.

  [SS C/T/50/8]

  Thurloe found that he was being passed any documents relating to religious or political radicalism – though none of them to do with the Levellers themselves. He strongly suspected that Scot was trying to distract him.

  A Declaration of the Grounds and Reasons why we the Poor Inhabitants of the Town of Wellingborrow, in the County of Northampton, have begun and give consent to dig up, manure and sow Corn upon the Common. . .

  A collection of malcontents and enthusiasts and indigent peasants had occupied common land in Surrey, and started to plant it for their own subsistence. There had been scenes in the church. After initial amusement, the local landowners had grown unhappy. They didn’t like the idea that people could start growing things on unused ground, and they didn’t like their servants wandering into the camp of an evening: politics and the pox. There had been unexplained fires at the camp; anonymous beatings at night. The radicals had moved on.

  Is this the freedom that was fought for, or must this be fought to preserve that freedom?

  Another encampment nearby, through the winter months – and how miserable was that? – and enduring into spring; but now reportedly driven out.

  In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.

  This was more than mere beggary and immorality.

  O thou Powers of England, though thou hast promised to make this People a Free People, yet thou hast so handled the matter, through thy self-seeking humour, That thou hast wrapped us up more in bondage, and oppression lies heavier upon us; not only bringing thy fellow Creatures, the Commoners, to a morsel of Bread, but by confounding all sorts of people by thy Government, of doing and undoing.

  More reports on his desk, covering the latest letter from J. H.; more pamphlets. There was a camp in Northamptonshire now. The local Justice had been ordered to prosecute the inhabitants. And Hertfordshire; and Gloucestershire. Enthusiasm and desperation, breaking out like sores across the land.

  For truly the Kinglie power reigns strongly in the Lords of Mannors over the Poor; for my own particular, I have in other Writings as well as in this, Declared my Reasons, That the common Land is the poor Peoples Proprietie; and I have Digged upon the Commons, and I hope in time to obtain the Freedom, to get Food and Raiment therefrom by righteous labour, which is all I desire.

  To most men it was madness, of course, and chaos. This upheaving of society was not what the war had been fought for.

  But it was what the war had brought. Make it legitimate to challenge one form of authority; make it possible for all to speak their own truth; and it became harder to claim any one truth unimpeachably right. Thomas Scot and his ideals; Tarrant and his vengeance; I with my ambition. And Cromwell trying to hold the world together. Is a society of vegetable-tillers theoretically any less legitimate than a society of clever clerks like me?

  John Thurloe frowned at the mess of papers, queasy at the implications of his logic.

  That every one that is born in the Land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation.

  And where, in any of this, were his Royalist ghosts?

  A town house on the outskirts of Edinburgh, discreet grey stone blending into the sky; the servants away, the door locked, and Sir Mortimer Shay settled in a large chair in the study.

  ‘I had not looked to see you, sir. You favour Scotland with much attention.’ The voice was low: measured and almost monotonous; but there was enough in the vowels and the eyes above them to show concern.

  Shay smiled. ‘In this decade, most that has been truly troublesome for these kingdoms has come out of Scotland; I have the hope we may tempt something good out of it, for once at least.’

  The eyes were down. ‘Montrose?’ The eyes flicked up.

  Shay said nothing.

  ‘He is landed; that much is known among the men of influence here – and no doubt by you also, sir.’

  ‘And?’

  The other man looked away as if considering, then back at Shay; and he shook his head slowly. ‘He’s jumped too soon.’ The side of Shay’s mouth twisted as he listened. ‘The Church party are not ready to treat with the King, and they’ll never trust Montrose.’

  ‘He may attract a following regardless. Then they shall be forced to come to terms.’

  Again the slow, regretful shake of the head. ‘They have the clans well satisfied for now. And they’re ready for Montrose.’

  Shay watched him bleakly, and took in and released a slow disgruntled breath.

  During supper there was a knock at the door, and then a servant whispering in his master’s ear, and a note passed to him. He glanced at it and, having checked that the servant had left, looked at Shay. ‘If I may suggest, we might finish in haste.’ He looked to the door again, wary. ‘You might wish to accompany me on a short errand.’

  In a church on the other side of the city, their horses tethered outside and shifting discontented in a wind that came with a sting from the nearby sea, they found a young man at prayer.

  They sat in the shadows at the back of the church, and waited.

  After a few minutes the young man stood, turned, and walked up the aisle towards them.

  ‘Have you come far, pilgrim?’

  The young man stopped, checked that the church was empty, and they completed the little liturgy. Shadowed Shay, glanced at warily by the young man, was introduced as a trusted friend.

  The young man sat, sleek but obviously tired, and pulled a substantial Bible from a cloth pouch that hung round his neck. Having looked again around the church, he opened the Bible by the back cover and began to pull at the endpaper; it came away from the leather with difficulty but without tearing. From behind it, the young man extracted four or five sheets of unusually thin paper, which he passed to the Edinburgh man.

  ‘Letters to you from the Court, and via you to certain of our friends.’ The Edinburgh man nodded, and as a courtesy passed them immediately to Shay. The young man’s eyes followed the movement. ‘I landed less than an hour ago,’ he said quickly; then, uncertain: ‘I stopped only to give tha—’

  ‘You were right to do so, boy.’ Shay’s voice was the shadows, the old stones. ‘Surviving any day is miracle enough.’

  The young man hesitated, glanced down at the Bible, and started to close it.

  ‘What else?’ Shay said, strong.

  Another hesitation, then he reopened the Bible. ‘I have two letters. . . addressed to the Parliament here in Scotland.’ He leaned closer. ‘From His Majesty.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘But one only to be delivered.’ Shay let out a growled sigh in understanding. ‘Contingent. On. . . on—’

  Shay finished it for him: ‘On whether Montrose wins his battle. Should he win, one letter decrying the faction who’ve led the Church party against him. One letter disowning him should he fail.’

  The young man nodded, at first unhappy but then trying to recover some poise.

  When he was gone towards the centre of the city with his Bible, Shay slumped back in the pew. After a few moments he said, ‘Montrose may fail. Indeed, I fear the Crown uses him only as a threat. But we must give him every chance. And we must ensure the cause does not fail with him. I may have to send a report to London.’

  ‘To London?’

  ‘Mm.’ He grunted rough amusement. ‘Lots of repor
ts going to London. Very hard to know where they all come from, I imagine.’

  TO THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE,

  Sir, this town is in a babel of ferment over the approach of Montrose. Every clan and interest has his partisan here, and they do scheme and watch one another like jealous vultures in a desert. For every man who loves peace and thinks our relations quite settled, there is another who fears us and hungers for a stricter religious settlement in London, and a third who hates both others for some forgotten pagan quarrel that none may remember including he. Montrose, for his former miraculous exploits in these same highlands, is quickly beloved again of the simple souls. Argyll and the other leaders here have offended too many with their preferments and their pride to be full sure that they have the control they claim. We have hopes and assurances that Montrose is weak and soon to be defeated. But a moment’s ill-luck in some distant valley would turn Scotland quite about, and there are many in this town who would greet such a misfortune right heartily.

  Edinburgh,

  April.

  ‘Signs of too much latitude of thinking among our Scottish friends, I fear.’

  Cromwell – another hasty visit – took the paper without speaking, scanned it, and shook his head like an uncomfortable sheepdog. ‘Lord, I am right weary of these Scots and their squabbles. They would burn this whole island for a flea.’

  ‘Our other reports from Scotland show them more phlegmatic about

  Montrose. They have their consciences and their tribes under control.’

  ‘There is too much of a risk. I am not ready for another war on Scotland.’

  ‘I doubt it necessary.’

  Cromwell’s eyes were lost in the distance a moment, and then clear on St John. ‘A message to Scotland, if you agree. From me, to the leaders in Edinburgh. Tell them this: that I believe that God has made these islands large enough for a diversity of true consciences; that I offer them all humility and respect and love as men of Godly belief and sincerity; that I wish them and their Church and their land no harm; that I will not suffer a Scottish apostate and outlaw to kindle malice against England and threaten our north; that I will root out such malice with fire and sword if I must go to the farthest end of these islands to find it.’ A single heavy nod of self-approval. ‘And Thomas Scot may have one of his tame preachers write a sermon to the same end.’