Something of scorn touched Lady Constance’s face. Good; let her think me weak. Her face was a little more pink than was natural, but the painting was subtly done. If he looked closely, he could see the age of the skin, its looseness, but her cheekbones were strong and gave the face its character, and she held herself well. Still, no question, a handsome woman, and obviously knew every art of dress and posture to reinforce nature.
‘Parliament is looking for men of character, in English and Scottish society, whose affinities and reason might help to restore harmony. It’s so difficult to get sense and restraint from the men of this city at the moment, and you were recommended to me as someone who had moved in royal society and at the highest levels here in Scotland.’
Constance Blythe wondered if there was innuendo somewhere beneath this, but contented herself with the surface flattery.
‘I’m hoping that you might advise me.’
‘You expect me to—’
‘Sir Peter Booth, for example. He I think has connections in Scotland.’
‘He does, but none of significance.’ What a quaint, stubborn little deference. It may remain fun after all to glide around this city.
‘Or Sir Oliver Percy.’
‘He’d talk to you, sure enough. You’d buy him for fifty pounds flat, but he’d repulse as many as he brought with him.’ Such a funny breed these Parliament men are. Dark dogged upstarts. Rather nice eyes.
‘Maurice Monroe?’
She considered. ‘Much more intelligent man. With intelligent friends.’
‘There was a circle around Sir George Astbury, I thought. He’s dead now of course, sadly. But I thought—’
‘George Astbury? He’d hardly have done for a turncoat!’
‘I’m not seeking a—’
‘He was pure, blind loyal, and King James and then King Charles loved him for it. He’d no more have thought of dallying with you than of ploughing one of the maids or stealing the royal plate.’
‘I thought he had an acquaintance, who might – Shaw, was it? Shay?’
‘Shay?’
‘Yes.’ Thurloe’s heart thumping. ‘I thought him of that circle.’
‘With Astbury?’ She was incredulous. ‘Why, they were no more than cous—’ She was overwhelmed by a sudden spatter of coughs, which hissed like a cat’s out of her throat. ‘No more th—’ Another cough. ‘I beg your pardon. Do you mind. . .?’ She rang a little bell on the table beside her, waited until the maid hurried in, asked her for water, and held up a frail hand to Thurloe to plead for his forbearance. Thurloe smiled pleasantly, and waited in silence.
Constance Blythe huddled smaller over the hands folded in her lap, watching them through angry eyes. You foolish old trollop.
How would this clerk know of Shay? He is no clerk, and if he knows that name then he plays a much darker game. And I so proud and full of myself and talking. She felt the tears start to come, covered them with another bout of coughing. They always would call me a dumb tart.
She glared at the fat pink skin on the back of her hand, its minute painted scales. Has the rot in your body started on your brain as well? So stupid! Lord, I might have been a desperate virgin flashing my paps at him.
She felt herself pulling back from the pasty flesh that cloaked her, recoiling from her moment’s complacency. My family is older than my kingdom. My spirit is more than my skin. She became again the mind, watching carefully through the mask of the face. Kings and Courts have swooned for me.
Restored by a cup of water. She began again. ‘Excuse me, please. I tire so quickly these days, and it has been a time of great strain.’ Thurloe nodded sympathetically, and opened his mouth to speak. ‘You were asking about someone. Yes – George Astbury. A pleasant man, George. Something of a fool, but we all are as we age, you’ll learn that one day. Even when younger, though, he was apt to be pudding-headed. His companions – vanity is not just a failing in the old, isn’t that right? – his companions – that was his failing always, a kind of vanity. It’s worse in the stupid, you know.’ Thurloe no longer knew which generation he was in, let alone its qualities, and again tried to speak. ‘But his companions, now. There was Simon Treves. And Oliver Baynes. Baynes was a most handsome man, and always at the heart of any little intrigues at Court. And Thomas Tryon. Tryhorn?’
‘When was—’
‘Tryon. There’s a nephew. He’d be very susceptible to whatever nasty schemes you people have in mind. No doubt you’ve thought of him. I don’t know if you people realize—’ She started to cough again. She took another little mouthful of water, but it only made the coughing richer. ‘I’m – I’m sorry. I’m – when I get excited, you know. I’m sorry.’ Her frailty itself seemed to pain her. ‘I wonder if we could continue this another day.’
Thurloe was frustrated, but in no place to force himself, and part of his frustration was at the possibility that Lady Constance Blythe might be a waste of his time and focus. Stepping into the street he checked the names in his head. Astbury and Treves and Baynes and Tryh—. . . Tryon. Astbury and this Shay were cousins of some kind. He’d wanted more about—
He stood still in the street, boots sinking slowly into the mud. Again he rehearsed the conversation.
She had changed course during the interview, completely. Not tired, but extremely shrewd. He stopped, and glanced back up at the first-floor window.
She was watching him. Thurloe smiled, knew that he’d caught her eye, and walked on. He would have the house watched, and he would return soon with a little more rigour in his thinking.
Constance Blythe watched him go. Lovely big eyes. But I’m rather afraid that that might be a very clever young man. She reached for the bell. Such a pity, that the world is to be dominated by the clever men and not the glorious.
‘Marie, bring me paper and ink. You will go with a message to the doctor in ten minutes.’
A summons from Mortimer Shay was a commandment to Balfour and Vyse, and they enjoyed the thought of activity and usefulness in this time of confusion and regathering and politics. Twenty minutes after Shay had sent his message the two were standing in front of him in his lodging.
Shay held a small paper in his fingers, and waved it once. ‘We have – how does Manders?’
‘Well enough.’ Balfour.
Vyse added, ‘He now curses and complains with full heart, and his thoughts begin to turn to women again. One leg or no, recovery is nearly complete.’
Shay grunted, smiled in spite of himself, and waved the paper again. ‘We have urgent and vital duty. There is a woman in Edinburgh. An old spirit and a great one, and dear to our cause. The man Thurloe has begun to take interest in her for what she may know.’ He shook his head. ‘She must be out of the city within the hour; she will need our help.’ Firm nods from the two young men. ‘Your help. I will be close by, but not at the wall; this is an exploit for younger, faster men.’ Acceptance and subdued eagerness on the faces, and inside the knowledge that they were more expendable.
Vyse: ‘And must we assume that this Thurloe may be watching her?’
‘It’s possible.’ He glanced at each of them. ‘There is a time for sport and a time for decision. If you have the opportunity, kill him.’ The two young men nodded, Balfour once and simply, Vyse more uneasily. Lord, I know not whether I love more the one for his determination, or the other because he gives us something worth fighting for.
Shay’s glance hardened, and he caught each pair of eyes again. ‘You are gentlemen, and I need not say it; but forgive me if I emphasize her importance for our cause. Her life is worth vastly more than yours both.’
Thurloe was walking towards Lady Constance Blythe’s house again at dusk, a soldier with him. Even the cobbled streets were thick with mud, and the two squelched in an uneven rhythm, the musket occasionally knocking into Thurloe’s side as the soldier wrestled with it and a lantern. Through fifteen minutes of little sighs and huffs and asides, the soldier – a local man – had made clear his dissatisfaction with
the extra duty.
The evening was clear-skied and warm, but the city’s tall grey town houses, crowding impassive on either side made it seem more dreary.
Thurloe stopped them opposite the house, and behind him the soldier began to look around for a more sheltered spot to base himself and those who would come after him. Like all of its neighbours, the house was narrow – probably only one room and a stair or corridor wide – and four floors high. There was light glowing from the first-floor windows – where he’d been earlier in the day – and the suspicion of it from somewhere on the ground floor.
‘That’s the other snag with coming out at night, sir,’ the soldier was saying, with the misleading implication that there had been only one other snag previously identified. In the Lowland Scots accent, selected vowels echoed the painfulness of the situation described. ‘During the day, you see, these shops would be open, and we could ask if maybe there was a handy spot inside for our lookout.’
Irritation and amusement jostled in Thurloe, and the unworthy satisfaction of knowing that he would not himself be suffering outdoors tonight. Such a pleasant simplicity to the world of the soldiers. Inside better than outside. Dry better than wet. He wished his own head could find such certainties.
‘Come with me a moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve an idea.’
He would draw Lady Constance’s attention to the sentry; say the man was for her protection – such a brittle environment after the fall of the city, and her co-operation was much appreciated. She’d be grateful or she’d be intimidated, and either would serve. With the soldier huffing behind him, he knocked at the front door.
Silence, and half a minute passed. Listening closely, Thurloe convinced himself he could hear sporadic steps in the hall beyond. He knocked again.
This time the steps came clear, and quickly nearer, and the door opened without sound of a bolt. The maid – Marie, wasn’t it? – peered out warily.
‘Good evening,’ Thurloe said, and stepped up into the hall. Really it was just a corridor, running from front door to back, broken halfway along by a step down that also marked the change from plaster walls and floor tiles to whitewash and flagstones. ‘I’d like to see Lady Constance again.’
The maid took a breath. ‘She’s gone to bed. The house is locked up now. You must come again tomorrow.’
Thurloe had been pleased with his little idea, and he was irrationally annoyed to be thwarted. And this frustration kept him asking questions.
She has retired to bed. Yet the first-floor living room is illuminated, and not the second-floor bedroom.
He peered down the corridor. The house is closed up for the night. But the doors are unbolted.
‘Soldier! Bring the lantern!’ Back to the maid, with a soft smile. ‘I’ll trespass a few yards further, if I may.’ And he was past her, with the heavy boots of the soldier tramping behind him.
Crouched over the mud just outside the back door, lantern held above him, Thurloe could see the track of a pair of small boots stepping off the back step and away. ‘Quickly’ – insistent to the soldier – ‘if you had to get out of the city from here, as fast as possible and avoiding sentries, how would you go?’
There was a frustrating pause as the soldier warmed up to the urgency of the situation and then to full understanding. Then he was off and eager, proud of his local knowledge and something to do. He led off in the same direction as the boot tracks, Thurloe hurrying after with the lantern and trying to distinguish the trail in the mess of mud and his jolting, ill-lit view.
The alley opened onto a side street, but the soldier was unerringly across it and into another alley, a weird black world of looming, jerking, distorted shadows. He jinked right and then left again, and ten trotted paces later stopped at a fork. ‘Either up here to the left, sir, curving more to the left as she goes and then taking the first right and so down some steps. Or down to the right and keep following down as she twists about. Used to run wild in these lanes as littlins, we did. Either way you get to the same place. Small gateway – not even a gate to it and it won’t be guarded.’
Thurloe could make out no suggestion of the boot prints. ‘Take your pick,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at the gate.’
Constance Blythe hesitated at the gateway, then stepped into it, a threshold between the town she knew but now feared, and the unknown land outside. This is what we are come to. She felt her vulnerability, exposed in the opening. I have lived in lights and beauty, and now I huddle in darkness and the shit of vagrants, desperate and afraid.
‘Lady Constance?’ As she heard the voice she heard other noises behind it – footsteps, and the stamping of horses – and then saw two shapes in the gloom, one of them mounted. ‘Shay has come for you. I’m Vyse; this is Balfour. Will you get up on his horse, please?’ Shay’s name sparked a flicker of warmth in her, and for a moment she felt the old thrill of young men and an exploit.
Then, behind them, slippery steps from the darkness, and hasty breaths. Balfour hissed fierce: ‘Into the wall, my lady. Vyse’ –Vyse looked up grim – ‘I will show myself.’ Vyse nodded resolute and stepped away.
A figure appeared in the little gateway, heard and saw at the same time a man on a horse wheeling and splashing not ten paces away, and stepped forward and opened his mouth in the shout. He stepped forward onto Henry Vyse’s knife and died, with a single breathless choke, and two pairs of wide white eyes stared in shock at each other, and the dead man slumped into the mud. Vyse gaped for a second, then heard the horse and the hissed command and was fumbling his knife away and grabbing at the old lady and dragging her out and pushing her up onto Balfour’s horse and lunging for his own and they were away.
Moments later they pulled up in front of the vast mounted hulk of Sir Mortimer Shay, a shadow in the darkness glistening with knife and sword and pistol. They helped the old lady over onto his larger horse, bundled side-saddle in front of him, and then they all hurried away into the deeper night of the countryside. For one last time Constance Blythe felt Mortimer Shay’s great arms wrapped round her, felt a girl again, and safe.
Behind them, another figure came splashing through the mud to the gateway, tried to pull sense from the confusion of hoof-beats in the darkness, then saw the outline of the body slumped at his feet. He dropped instinctively, pulled the face upward, and knew it dead.
Once again, John Thurloe shook his head grim into the night, and wondered at his enemies.
PARIS, OCTOBER
Sir,
I fear the thanks I can offer are meagre fare against the grandeur of the generosity that is yours; more than them I have only my prayers, that you may live healthy and long, not from any unChristian preference, but that the world might benefit from your charity and greatness of spirit. For as much Verhovius may teach me in this new work, so humbly and gratefully received, of the right functioning of the state, so much do you teach me in your giving it.
If I may reinforce this little thanks with a token of esteem, allow me to report that I have entrusted to Eberhardt the delivery to you in The Hague of, firstly, some bulbs of the Turkey Daffodil that I had of Morison and which may please you a little, and, second, a sample of a new Cydonia that is commencing to settle in this climate. You are the wiser judge of these affairs, but I am sure that any man desirous to earn a little credit with Hartlib in London could do nothing better than make him a gift of the Cydonia, and if you were to do so and win advantage thereby, at last I might feel I had demonstrated adequately my gratitude.
I dined yesterday with Hobbs, de Bonnefons and de Roberval. De Bonnefons is completing his Jardinier, and Hobbs is much swollen with his own new treatise, like to be delivered within the year, but strangely cautious on it, for he is normally not slow to debate. From his manner, and certain of his remarks, I think that there shall be in this offspring humours that will not please all the stricter theorists of your English Royal cause, but which he is too strong in will and earnest in intellect to moderate. He told us that Cromwell continues to see
k an accommodation with the Scottish Church, and that the hidden truths of Stirling are known by London before they are known by the young King himself who is in the very place, which proffered insight on the tendencies not merely of our friend’s homeland, but also of his acquaintanceship, for I think he has not got these tales from Payne, and more probably from Dury or someone else in London. I conceive that our friend’s experiments in human motion may yet lead him to jump the Channel once more.
Here all the talk is of Turenne, as is become habitual. Wilhelm, as you will know better than I, is turned quiet again, and Mazarin was feeling confident enough yesterday to be most ungenerous to three or four petitioners, and in truth he has the nobles by their ears; and yet he may never settle, and Turenne is undefeated, and each day of this unquiet costs the treasury livres beyond counting, and I fear that your Queen’s hopes of assistance for the Royal campaigns will meet but cold courtesy.
‘Philomelus’
[SS C/X/50/179]
Shay came into East Anglia by muddy lanes and silent failing inns. The nights were longer, and he filled them with plodding wet journeys and the occasional indifferent meeting. He needed to know what was happening in Norfolk, felt the old ache of displacement – I am not where the battle is – but the eastern counties stretched out in flat, cloud-pressed eternities, and their roads sucked heavily at his horse’s hooves.
In the last week of November he came to a farmhouse, coat sodden and wet face glistening in the firelight.
‘I sent word in September! Fully two months ago.’ The voice was too heavy with tiredness to carry the anger.
The man perched on the chair opposite him was small and neat and feverish with nerves. ‘These affairs – they may not be sparked like flint, sir. Surely you—’
‘Two – months.’ Shay growled the words with equal weight.
‘I know, but. . .’ – inspiration wild in the flickering face – ‘Cromwell and his Army are still in the north. We are as much a distraction as ever!’
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