The King's Man

by Alison Stuart

  Thurloe’s eyes widened with genuine surprise. ‘Indeed? I had not thought of Lovell as the marrying kind. I must say, you seem ideally suited to each other. Good day to you … ’ he paused and the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Mistress Lovell.’

  ~ * ~

  Thamsine stood at the window watching the tall, lanky figure of the schoolteacher, Vowells, striding away from the inn, his head lowered against the cold rain. He carried with him the details of a meeting that night. A meeting that would probably mean his death. She turned to her husband, her eyes flashing silent accusations.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that.’ Kit turned his head away.

  ‘You’ve sent him to his death. How do you live with yourself?’

  He turned his head to look at her but said nothing.

  ‘We had a bargain.’ Thamsine sat down next to the bed. ‘I want to hear the whole story.’

  ‘My confession?’

  ‘If that is how you wish to put it.’

  Kit laid his good arm across his forehead. ‘I’m Thurloe’s agent because I am a coward, Thamsine. Well, partly because I am a coward. The second reason is probably more honourable.’

  Thamsine leaned against the wall, her arms crossed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘After Worcester … ’ He broke off and sighed. ‘I was wounded at Worcester, badly wounded. In fact, I was lucky to survive. It was only because the wife of one of the sergeants took pity on me that I survived.’

  ‘Was she pretty?’ Thamsine smiled.

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ Kit snapped. ‘She was as wide as she was tall and as strong as any man. I was in no position to argue with her. I survived and found myself in a hellhole. No other word for it, Thamsine. I found myself regretting I had not died and I prayed for death because it seemed the only release. That’s how Thurloe found me. He promised me liberty and offered a means of persuasion that could not be resisted.’

  ‘Did he torture you?’

  Kit shook his head. ‘He didn’t need to, Tham. He knew I would acquiesce.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he held my brother. Did I mention I had a brother?’

  Thamsine nodded.

  Kit’s lips tightened. ‘Like you and your brother, Daniel and his sister, Frances, are the children of my father’s second marriage. Daniel would be twenty-one now. Frances is two years younger.’

  ‘They’re both alive?’

  ‘Frances lives with her mother and my grandfather at Eveleigh Priory. Eveleigh was one of the last sieges of the war. My father and I held it for two months before they took it by storm. The house was largely destroyed, my father killed, and I was taken prisoner. They released me in ’47 and I went straight to France.’

  He took a breath. ‘My brother Daniel had been a boy when Eveleigh fell. When I returned in ’51 he was eighteen, fearless and spoiling for a battle. Just as I had been ten years earlier.’

  ‘Like Edward.’

  ‘Indeed. I had regaled him with too many stories of the high times and glory. I didn’t think … didn’t notice that he hung on every word. He saw this has his chance to regain the family fortunes and he begged to come with me. In the end I agreed to take him. My stepmother was hysterical but she could no more have stopped him than I. He would have come anyway and it seemed far better to let him come with me, under my protection. I promised his mother I would look after him and keep him safe.’ Kit gave a hollow laugh. ‘You know how the battle went? God knows, it was as hard a battle as ever I had fought. I kept Daniel at my side but the fighting separated us. He was beset on all sides and I tried to reach him but I was cut down and a musket stock –’ He touched his head above the right ear ‘– took the last fight out of me. I woke up a prisoner in Worcester Cathedral. No one could tell me what became of him and for months after the battle, I thought he was dead.’

  ‘But he survived?’

  Kit swallowed. ‘Six months after Worcester, Thurloe came to Warwick Castle, where I was held, with his proposition. He had me dragged to a window. Below in the courtyard in the cold, the mud, and the rain were a group of Scottish prisoners who were to be transported to Barbados. Daniel was among them, shackled and beaten, with barely a rag on his back. However bad my lot had been, his had been infinitely worse. Thurloe told me that Daniel would be transported with the other prisoners and unless I co-operated he would be dead by year’s end. Barbados.’ Kit spat the word out. ‘I don’t know if you have heard of the conditions in Barbados, Thamsine?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘The men, black and white, are treated like animals, and those who don’t die of the maltreatment die of disease. Thurloe gave me a choice. If I agreed to his proposal Daniel would be well treated. If I did not, then he worked the fields as one of the slaves. He was right. The boy would be dead within a year. What choice did I have?’

  He looked away. Thamsine placed her hand over his and said nothing.

  With his face still turned from her, he said, ‘Daniel has spent two years on that pestilential island.’

  Thamsine’s mouth went dry and she swallowed. ‘Do you know if he is still alive?’

  ‘Thurloe says he is, and I would rather live with that hope than see England plunged into civil war again.’ He turned his head back to look at Thamsine, his gaze searching her face. ‘It was all Thurloe needed to secure my co-operation. It came to a simple choice between my brother’s life or an indefinite life in prison. It was no choice, Thamsine. If I refused, both Daniel and I would be dead. My answer was a given. I took the coward’s choice.’

  Thamsine shook her head. ‘Kit, any man would have done what you did. Why do you think it was a coward’s choice?’

  He looked at her. ‘You’re not a man, Thamsine. You don’t understand the concept of honour. There is no honour in betraying my friends and comrades, no matter how good the personal cause may be. Thurloe offered me freedom, and at that nadir of my life that was all I craved, whatever the cost. Daniel was not given that choice.’

  She stared at him for a long moment, trying to make sense of what he had just told her. “Honour” had killed her brother and changed her life forever.

  ‘You’re right, I don’t understand “honour”,’ she said, fighting the bitterness in her voice. ‘How would your death in prison have helped your brother?’

  He gave what passed for a shrug and grimaced. ‘It was a Devil’s bargain, Thamsine. I’ve kept my word and mercifully now it is nearly done. Daniel will be freed and once he is safely returned to England, you and I shall go to France or wherever our hearts take us.’ He shifted uncomfortably, grimacing. ‘I want to be free of England, Thamsine.’

  ‘I told you I have lands in Virginia.’

  Kit’s eyes gleamed. ‘Virginia. That would be a new start for us both. Come here, Tham.’

  She sat down on the bed beside him and he took her hand in his good one, his thumb circling the palm. ‘Do you think, for a moment, we can let ourselves believe that there will be a future without John Thurloe or Ambrose Morton?’

  ‘I think we have to believe that, Kit,’ she replied. She laid a hand on his battered cheek. ‘I only know that whatever that future is, it has to be together.’

  His hand tightened on hers and he lifted her fingers to his lips. Beneath the bruising he looked pale and pinched. Thamsine kissed him gently and stood up.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘I promised Nan I would help in the taproom tonight. May is … ’ She left the sentence unfinished.

  May had not left her bed. She lay under the covers, curled up like a child, too exhausted to cry and too traumatised to move.

  ‘I’ll bring you some supper and then you can sleep.’

  ~ * ~

  Thamsine had promised to help Jem in the taproom, but there were few customers and as soon as she had a chance, she warmed some broth to take upstairs to Kit. She had not expected to find him standing in the middle of the room, a blanket inadequately draped around him. In her haste to get to him, she slopped soup on
to the tray.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She reached him as his knees buckled and he sat back on the bed.

  ‘I was looking for my clothes,’ he said.

  His hair, tangled and still matted with his blood, stood on end. His bruised face was taut and grey with pain and his eyes glittered with fever.

  ‘Why do you want your clothes?’

  ‘I have to warn them,’ he said.

  Thamsine knew he meant the conspirators, who even now were gathering at the Swan.

  ‘Kit, you’re too late. You know that.’

  ‘Maybe not. If I hurry – ’

  ‘You couldn’t hurry if the hounds of Hell were after you.’ She sat down beside him on the bed and took his good hand in hers. ‘It’s too late for conscience now, Kit,’ she said.

  He turned to look at her. ‘They’ll hang, Thamsine.’

  ‘You knew that, Kit.’ She stroked the hair away from his eyes, his beautiful green eyes, dulled by pain and anguish. Kit Lovell, always so confident and in control, stared into a vision of Hell that she could not understand.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I can warn them. I’ll attract less attention than you.’

  He stared into the far corner of the room, his shoulders rising and falling with every painful breath.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last.

  She stood to go and he caught her hand.

  ‘Thamsine, be careful.’

  ‘I won’t take unnecessary risks, of that you can be sure.’

  She smiled and kissed him, drawing the tumbled bedclothes back around him. His cloak hung over the back of the chair. She snatched it up and ran out into the dark streets.

  ~ * ~

  The street outside the Swan Inn heaved with horses and soldiers. Thamsine’s heart sank. She had come too late.

  She melted into the shadows of a back alley to watch as Kit’s former comrades were led out. Vowells, Gerard and other familiar faces. She shook her head and turned to go.

  ‘Where d’ya think you’re going?’ A soldier stepped across her path.

  ‘Just headin’ home, love.’ Thamsine dropped into a London accent. ‘What’s ‘appening here?’ She jerked her head at the scene in the street.

  ‘Traitors,’ the soldier said. ‘You head off home. The night’s no time for pleasant strolls.’

  Thamsine returned to the inn with a heavy heart, where Kit waited for her. His eyes read her face and he turned away.

  ‘There’s nothing you could have done,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what did you hope to achieve?’

  He laid an arm across his eyes. ‘I could have redeemed myself, somehow.’

  ‘You’ve done enough. You were always playing a dangerous game. You knew the price. It’s done. You’re free. Kit. We’re both free.’

  He lifted his arm away from his eyes. ‘We’re neither of us free until we are quit of England, Thamsine.’ The fingers of his left hand crushed the bedclothes. ‘Leave me.’ He shifted uncomfortably and looked down at his broken hand. ‘I need some time alone.’

  Thamsine hesitated, torn between throwing her arms around him to assuage the terrible pain that went beyond his physical injuries and recognising that he had to come to terms with his betrayal. She closed the door behind her. He needed to be alone with his demons.

  Chapter 18

  May carefully tilted the pan of hot wax across the candle moulds.

  ‘Hold it still, Thamsine,’ she grumbled. ‘You really aren’t cut out for hard work, are you?’

  Thamsine shook her head.

  May set the pan down and sank onto the stool. Her natural good spirits were returning, but she had moments of terrible melancholy and Thamsine recognised now as one of them. The girl’s brow creased and a tear ran down her cheek. Thamsine moved to take her in her arms but May held up a hand.

  ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’ She took a deep, quivering sigh. ‘When do you suppose it stops hurting?’

  Thamsine knew she meant the emotional pain, not the physical bruises, which after three days were already fading to a purple-green. May’s bruises served as a reminder of her own violent encounters with Ambrose Morton. If it hadn’t been for Kit Lovell, who had dulled the pain with his love, she may have been lost forever.

  ‘I don’t think it does, May, not really. It’s always there.’

  May looked at her and took her hand. ‘I forget you’ve had your moments with the bastard. I’ve always liked a bit of a romp with a man,’ she said. ‘No harm done, a bit of fun and a shilling perhaps for later, but always my choice. Never done it against me will before. What he did … ’

  Another tear started to course down her cheek.

  ‘What he did was done to your body, May, not to your heart.’ Thamsine put a hand on her friend’s chest. ‘He can’t hurt what’s inside you.’

  May’s lips twisted into a weak smile. ‘Listen to me. What a misery. I’ll be fine. Just see if I’m not!’

  Thamsine reached out for the girl’s hand and squeezed it.

  ‘I’ll see the brute dead. You both have my word on that.’

  Both women looked up to see Kit sitting at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, roughly dressed in breeches and a shirt.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ Thamsine demanded.

  ‘Not long. It took me a full five minutes just to get down the stairs. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t be up, and how did you get dressed?’ Thamsine demanded.

  ‘With difficulty,’ Kit responded with a glimmer of his old humour, ‘but I’m not going to lie in bed being fussed over any longer. Three days with you wittering women is enough for any man. Where is everyone?’

  ‘Nan’s gone to do some shopping. Jem’s in the taproom,’ Thamsine replied.

  Kit pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he did so, and holding his ribs with his good hand, limped over to the chair where he subsided.

  Thamsine poured him a cup of small ale.

  ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.

  ‘May has been showing me how to make candles. My sister would tell me that work is good for the soul.’

  May smiled. ‘Helps make things seem more normal.’

  The door opened and Nan stepped in, shaking the water from her cloak.

  ‘Pelting down, it is,’ she said. ‘’Ere, what you doing out of bed?’ She set a basket down on the table. ‘Never mind. There’s bin no sign of that devil Morton. Jem has a boy watching the house … says he’s laid up good and proper.’

  ‘If he feels anything like me, he’ll be keeping his head down for a few weeks yet,’ Kit said with what Thamsine detected as a gleam of satisfaction in his eye.

  ‘With any luck you killed him,’ May responded.

  Kit shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Nan responded. ‘I’ve a message for you.’ She handed over a grubby, slightly damp piece of paper.

  Kit took it and gave it to Thamsine. ‘You read it. I recognise the seal and I don’t want to know what’s in it.’

  Thamsine broke the seal and read the few scrawled lines. She swore in an unladylike fashion. Thurloe required Lovell attend him immediately. She handed it to him and he read it without emotion on his face.

  ‘He calls, I must go,’ he said with weary resignation.

  ‘And how do you plan to get to Whitehall?’ Thamsine asked.

  Kit managed a watery smile. ‘Very slowly.’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ Thamsine declared flatly. ‘Whatever Thurloe has to say, he can say to both of us.’

  ~ * ~

  They found Thurloe in his office in Whitehall. He rose to his feet as they entered and looked them both up and down.

  ‘Well, well, the Lovells. What a fine pair you make.’

  ‘Excuse me, Thurloe. I am no mood for your jesting.’ Kit lowered himself painfully onto a chair and rubbed his right knee.

  ‘You have looked better, Lovell,’ Thurloe remarked. ‘Footpads, your wif
e tells me?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kit said. ‘Ten of them.’

  Thurloe raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Why do you want to see me?’

  ‘I thought you might like to know that we got everyone, except Henshaw and you of course. Happily for you, Henshaw managed to get away in circumstances that might suggest to the casual observer that he could have been the agent.’

  ‘Is he one of yours?’ Kit enquired.

  Thurloe shrugged. ‘I don’t care about Henshaw. However, I do care that we haven’t found the Frenchman.’

  ‘De Baas?’ Kit asked.

  Thurloe’s lip curled. ‘That popinjay is already on his way back to France with a flea in his ear. No, the other Frenchman, the assassin.’

  ‘Debigné? He was not with De Baas?’

  ‘No,’ Thurloe replied sourly. ‘And De Baas swears he has no idea where he is. Says Debigné operates alone. Is there any chance you know where he could be?’

  Kit shook his head. ‘No. I couldn’t find him and I doubt even Henshaw or Gerard knew where he was lodging. He said he liked to make his own arrangements.’

  Thurloe pressed his fingertips together.

  ‘Do you think he’ll carry out the plan even though the plot is discovered?’

  Kit considered for a moment. ‘He’s a professional, Thurloe. He has been well paid to do a job. Yes, I think he would.’

  ‘So when will he strike?’

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Tomorrow then, as Cromwell leaves chapel. He’ll be there,’ Kit said with certainty.

  Thurloe was silent. ‘You’re the only one who knows what he looks like.’

  Kit raised his head. ‘Thurloe, look at me! I am in no condition to stop a determined old woman, let alone an assassin.’

  ‘I just need you to identify him, that’s all.’

  ‘Just stop Cromwell going to chapel tomorrow,’ Thamsine put in.

  Thurloe looked at her. ‘If this man is a professional, do you think changing the Lord Protector’s routine will make a difference? None of us will be able to sleep at night until Debigné is caught.’