Traitor's Field

by Robert Wilton

  Manders fought for restraint as he spoke: ‘But – sir, that’s – the army could go south at any moment!’

  ‘Con’s days of hand-to-hand fighting are mostly done. You would likewise agree that she cannot be entrusted to some Scottish ferryman.’

  Manders swallowed his frustration. ‘Of course.’

  Shay read his expression. ‘Scotland will be left to Cromwell’s grim mercies. We don’t know what will happen in England. The expedition is a risk in itself. I will not compound that by risking you and in particular Lady Constance.’

  Lady Constance said quietly, ‘Women are an encumbrance to the army, Michael. Even at the best of times, the men restrict their movements if they have to think about our safety.’ She didn’t sound as if she believed it, and Manders wondered at the conversation that had preceded his arrival and left her so subdued.

  He grunted, and nodded to her as civilly as he could manage. His eyes strayed to the wooden chest at Shay’s elbow.

  ‘Yes. You’ll take this with you.’ Shay lifted the lid of the chest, and watched their widening eyes. ‘I have spent the last two days visiting some of the greater men hereabouts, invoking their commitment to our cause.’

  The coins and jewels glowed and smiled from the dull box, and then disappeared with the snap of the lid under Shay’s hand.

  Lady Constance seemed sad. ‘Mortimer, do you trust the cause so little, that you think only of smuggling these small treasures out?’

  Shay shook his head. ‘Sad times, Con. There are men who would pay more attention to this box than to your face.’

  Later, Shay and Manders standing together in a doorway, Balfour and Vyse waiting across the room. Shay’s words were low and earnest.

  ‘Whatever happens in England, men like you will preserve something of the old ways. That spirit will come home again – perhaps in a month, perhaps in a century. But it will survive in men like you.’

  Manders just nodded heavily, his one leg shifting uneasily under the extra weight of Shay’s hands on his shoulders.

  ‘But first you must get safe out of here; more important, you must get her safe out of here.’

  Again the nod.

  Shay leaned closer. ‘My affection for that woman is unrestrained. But listen well, boy: in the uttermost, it were better that she were dead than captured. Do you understand me?’ Manders’s eyes widened, and he nodded uncomfortably. ‘Otherwise. . . Manders, at Dunbar you were reckless with your life; but Lady Constance – her freedom alone – is truly a cause to die for.’

  ‘She is a lady, sir; I need no more.’

  Again he felt the old man’s hands holding his head, felt the great heavy eyes on him; then Shay had turned away into the night.

  The three young men were left alone. For a moment they stood silent, in a circle, hands on each other’s shoulders. Then Manders let his arms fall, and hopped back a pace, resettling the crutch against his side.

  Vyse said: ‘I hear the girls in France are very pretty, Manders. Try to behave as a gentleman, will you?’

  ‘Gods, what a thought.’ Balfour. ‘The syphilis’ll eat away his other leg and we’ll just have to prop him against the chimney in the evenings.’

  The smiles were routine. Manders looked at each of them.

  ‘Hal. Tom. You fight for me, so do it well.’ They nodded on instinct. ‘And come safe through. We will hunt together again.’

  It had become Thurloe’s habit to ride to the Edinburgh docks once in every day. He was enjoying the city more than he pretended: for men represented variously as barbarian, over-religious, or merely dull, he found the Scots of the capital disproportionately rational and intelligent, civilized in their pleasures, discreet as to their beliefs and serious about their Greek. But despite a more pleasant social life than he was used to in London, he looked forward to his daily escape.

  He claimed it gave him contact with the working end of the control of departures by sea, which tiresome part of exercising a closer stranglehold on the country seemed to have become part of his responsibility in Edinburgh. He claimed that a more immediate view of the tides of people and ships made him think more clearly about the secret currents he was trying to understand. In truth, he merely welcomed the open space and empty air of the sea, after the constricted, reeking city.

  The tree branches held claims to spring this morning, but the air still felt like winter as he rode. The sky was white, and the cold bone-deep.

  Where now was his Royalist network? Active out of Stirling, presumably. Infiltrating the front lines of the Parliamentary Army, perhaps – maybe deeper. Spreading sedition in England. And what of Doncaster and Pontefract? William Paulden in The Hague had tried to impress him with the mystery of what had been going on there. Still the suggestion of Leveller treachery. But, in truth, he had only heard of it through the J. H. letters; and those he now knew for deliberate deceptions.

  The Army, typically, had taken over the front room of a sordid waterfront tavern to monitor arrivals and departures, and with little jealousies and rivalries tried to co-ordinate with the customs men next door. As Thurloe stepped down from the cobbles into the tavern, head bent under the beams and nose twisting at the ill mix of fish and filth, the two soldiers sitting at a table in the window hurriedly closed the lid of a small chest and began to inspect a pile of papers with elaborate focus.

  Thurloe nodded to the tavern owner for a drink, and sat. The two soldiers looked up with wide-eyed attention. ‘Gentlemen.’ They nodded deferentially, which made him more suspicious. ‘What have we?’

  One of the soldiers pushed the pile of papers over, thin and greasy sheets, tickets of leave that they’d collected from people on the ships they’d searched. Thurloe counted them first; six today. ‘What else?’ He went through the sheaf again as he waited. His eyes flicked up to the two soldiers. He scanned the sheaf again, and something caught his attention. This time he held the soldiers’ eyes. ‘What else did you find?’

  He deliberately didn’t lower his eyes to the chest, unobtrusive on the bench beside them. He was learning to treat soldiers as he did his children. ‘Any other little successes?’ Their peccadilloes had to be wheedled out without shame.

  Eventually one of them glanced at his companion, and said:

  ‘We seized – this.’ He nodded to the chest.

  ‘Well done. What is it?’

  The soldier looked around the tavern, hesitated as the owner put a mug of heated wine in front of Thurloe and turned away, and lifted the chest lid for a moment. ‘We’ll be handing it in to the Colonel.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll bet they didn’t want you finding that, did they?’

  At last a little pride began to glow in the two faces. ‘That they did not, sir. Old lady it was. And her son.’ Thurloe’s mind was starting to turn, to wonder. ‘Him with only one leg, and looking very sick. Near dead, she thought. Making a bit of a fuss, she was. Anyway, they were on deck, wrapped all very cosy, and she handed over their passes very quick and obliging – bit too quick, if you take my meaning, sir – and soon as she thinks we’re inspecting the passes she’s glancing all nervous at her son. So we checked them both. He was missing a leg – but through the blanket it looked like it was growing back, if you follow.’ He grinned, and his companion grinned. They’d enjoyed developing that line. ‘Chest was hidden under his dressings and wrappings.’

  In their way they’d done well, unfortunately. ‘Good for you. No wonder you were so absorbed.’ They were dealing with someone who knew how they thought, how they behaved. ‘These the two passes? Mathilda Beatty? Thomas Beatty?’ Brow-racked scrutiny from the soldiers; they knew something was wrong now. ‘With the seals smudged? Smudged so you don’t see the fakery so well?’ The two young faces were sullen, dumb. ‘Tell me: the lady – fifties, perhaps sixty? Gold hair gone grey? Handsome?’ Still the boyish discomfort. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Sounds like it could be.’

  ‘How long ago? Quickly!’

  ‘Twenty minutes maybe?’


  ‘Can they be stopped? The guard ship, can it catch them?’ The soldiers started to ponder, which was always fatal. ‘Move, man! Go now!’

  From the rail of the brig Verity, pushing down the choppy Firth of Forth, Lady Constance Blythe watched her island for the first time. I have always moved among people, not among countries. Departure felt like death. She did not know where she was going, and would hardly know even once she was there. Who shall I know, and who shall know me?

  Michael Manders sat against one of the masts, and she knew that he was watching the thinning land with his own regrets and shame.

  Then a more anxious shout from one of the crewmen, and the Captain was staring around agitated, and it was immediately clear something was wrong.

  ‘The guard ship!’ He hurried to the rail, talking half to himself. Leaning out, he shaded his eyes and peered back towards the city. ‘She’s after us!’ This now clearly addressed to Lady Constance. Fear and accusation as he spoke to her: ‘She’s signalling us to stop!’

  And thus must all fairy stories end.

  Manders was sitting up, attentive and calculating.

  ‘Can’t we – can’t we outrun the ship?’ she said feebly.

  The Captain staring at her and back out to sea, shaking his head. ‘What? If we fail. . .’

  Manders was watching her now. She thought he might have been looking at the Captain, but it was unmistakably at her, and there was something hard and distant in the expression.

  Then he was levering himself up against the mast with clumsy intent, and hopping doggedly towards her with something held close against his side, and with a sick sadness at her fragility, at the waste of it all, she knew what Shay must have ordered. I am become like an old religion, better eradicated than spread, or like a contagion.

  Manders approached her, and smiled, and she tried to smile proudly back at him. His arm reached towards her, and then over her shoulder, and he gripped the rigging and began to hop along the deck using it for balance.

  The Captain had turned away, mouth opening in the shout, when an arm came hard around his throat and choked the sound, and he felt metal in his back, and heard words intimate in his ear. ‘We shall outrun her, Captain.’

  ‘But. . .’ – the words a constricted rasp – ‘it’s treason. . . If she catches up. . .’

  The words were still quiet, almost playful. ‘Perhaps she catches up, perhaps she doesn’t. Perhaps we must fight her. What is certain, Captain, is that if we do not try to outrun her I will blow out your spine.’ Manders was actually smiling now, enjoying the wind in his face. ‘Come, let us see what sort of men we may be, eh?’

  Lady Constance Blythe watched him with misted eyes and an old excitement kindling in her. There were still men. There was still hope. Oh, my gallant gallant lads.

  ‘We shall march into England!’

  It came out more shrill than he’d hoped. Why can’t I have the gravity of these old dark men? Two dozen heads swung round to the source of the sound, surprised and flustered and a little indignant. Will they heed me will they heed me will they heed me?

  ‘Your Majesty—’

  ‘That is my decision.’

  That swung it. The doubters hadn’t strength enough to overturn the clear wish of the King – but wasn’t the deal that we were supposed to control him? – and the forward men were quick to pocket the advantage – but that was unexpected, and it might become a dangerous habit.

  ‘Your Majesty’s decision is most welcome.’

  ‘We thank Your Majesty for your prudent consideration.’

  ‘Perhaps we may present Your Majesty with the details tomorrow. Some trivial matters of logistics. For your approval.’

  Charles Stuart wiped his palms on his velvet breeches, and breathed out very slowly.

  What have I done?

  Shay watched from the side, glances at the political men around the table and a close scrutiny of the young man at the top. Given the chance, this exquisite boy might be a King more than his father. Again he looked around the room, the meeting breaking up into clumps of grumbles and plots. But is a Scottish army invading England really that chance?

  Three years on, another Duke of Hamilton was marching south, for another Charles Stuart. The previous Duke had had George Astbury worrying beside him. Now, another Comptroller-General must help prepare the way, stir risings in support, squeeze out the last insipid drops of Royalist feeling in the counties.

  And so we try again, old George.

  Thomas Scot came hurrying at a stiff-legged trot, his cloak flapping clumsily and papers held tight in one hand. ‘South!’ he said through breaths. ‘They’re marching, Master Cromwell. As you had hoped.’ The last sentence emerged more hesitant, still doubting the wisdom of leaving England open. ‘I have the news straight from the young Charles’s Court. South – for England. The Duke of Hamilton commands.’ He rattled the papers. ‘It confirms what our scouts have been suggesting.’

  Thurloe looked at Thomas Scot, excited and apprehensive, at Cromwell, granite, and at the sheaf clenched in Scot’s hand. Another sortie of papers. Another set of pages come to offer us truths.

  Cromwell, knowing that the uncomfortable world of waiting, of speculations, of reports, was again being superseded by his world of battle, was unexcited. ‘There it is, gentlemen. The fox has broken cover. We must pray that God make our hounds keen.’

  Fortified Stirling, defiant on its crag, had been a place of defence for a millennium, the iron buckle on the waist of Scotland. Now the Scottish army was streaming south from the town, through the cockpit of their history, across its bones.

  The army is a whole society on the move, a whole economy: smiths and armourers and soldiers; foragers and butchers and cooks; pickpockets and royal accountants; whores and priests; a King. This little civilization moves at the pace of its slowest: the gorgeous coats poised on the warhorses must circle and wait, buzz out and back, to the trudge of the broken-soled pikeman and the women-of-all-trades with the wagons.

  There were some Englishmen in the army, mostly in the gorgeous coats, and they rode impatient – wondering at strategy and Court politics, perhaps anxious to be away from the bogs and ditches where Wallace and the Bruce had humiliated their ancestors. They couldn’t leave Scotland fast enough, and they couldn’t leave the trudging rascally Scottish foot-soldiers, their foul grating grumbling accents and their stink, at all. The Scots tramped steadily in the herd, pennies in their pockets and something to do at last. England was rich, wasn’t it? Plump cattle and plump girls; rich houses to liberate. These were the calculations of men, and the instincts of boys on a spree, and something tugging in blood that had been foraging southward since before time.

  A summer evening, a few miles south of Carlisle, and Shay caught up with the rearguard of the royal army. He was supposed to press on, to get through the army; he needed to be thrusting ahead, to be off on some task which he could not immediately define. So at least some grim insistence inside was telling him, thudding stubborn through his weariness.

  But it was so pleasant to fall in for a moment with the last riders of the rearguard, with the flat rays of the falling sun warming the yellow fields and sparkling the helmets and sword-points and bronzing the faces, to match pace with the gentle bounce of the uniforms and the rattle of their bridles. For a moment the world was peaceful and companionable, and Shay breathed in the landscape and listened to the quiet chat of the men. In that aching moment he was young and callow once more, and craving the assurance and competence of those beside him. In the moment his dreams were fresh again, unbloodied and still to be pursued.

  Dry boots, fresh clothes thick and warm, belts and weapons and saddle comfortable, the promise of supper, the casual banter of good men, the gentle drumbeat of hooves on solid ground, the private pleasure of moving in rhythm with others, the soft light, the scent of some deep rightness coming off the fields and hedges.

  The soldier trotting next to him – a boy; really just a boy – glanc
ed cautiously over and mumbled his respects. Shay felt the heaviness of his age, tried to contrive some gruff pleasantry in return, and then heard the dull snap of a musket shot from somewhere behind and a clang as it hit a backplate and then wild shouts and hooves and on an instinct he’d kicked his horse into the gallop and was lurching forward; the boy had hesitated, wanting to look before he decided – there is never time to decide – and Shay tried to slap at the boy’s horse as he passed to get it moving: ‘Ride!’

  Careering forward, the all-absorbing thunder of hooves and billowing dust, and Shay was snatching for opportunities and avenues of escape, but there was none through the hedges on either side, and now he risked a glance over his shoulder – what is the threat? What is the opportunity? – a detachment of Cromwell’s English horsemen – were they dropping back now? – perhaps less than a dozen, but impossible to tell through the chaos of dust and his shuddering vision. Then into the vision lurched the boy, slowing dramatically and shrinking away from Shay on a horse that bucked and spun and the boy was teetering and scrabbling and falling backwards into the road.

  Shay heaved at his reins and pulled viciously at his horse’s neck and the beast veered under him and he felt his stomach plunging away and then he was lashing the horse into the charge. Forty yards off the boy was staggering to his feet, grappling clumsy for his horse, thirty yards off, but the horse was shying and skittering and there were two English horsemen looming beyond him. Twenty yards and the first horseman was on the boy with a wild windmill stroke of his sabre and the boy was staggering aside; ten yards and Shay’s pistol was up and he fired and the rider disappeared backwards into the dust. Shay yanked hard on the reins again, pulling his horse around to protect the boy on the ground and colliding broadside with the second English rider. Confusion, Shay trying to punch the man off-balance backhanded while reaching for his sword, and the rider was pulling away, but then Shay’s horse had shied and reared and he was slipping off it as best he could into the dust.