‘He’d been told to watch Rainsborough presumably, and then he finds himself in this mad escapade, being dragged off by Royalists, and then Rainsborough says something unlikely, and the Lieutenant understands that Rainsborough’s identifying himself as the source.’
Shay’s faced screwed up in discomfort. ‘It seems too. . . There’s someone else who would have wanted the source dead, isn’t there? After all, who actually killed Rainsborough?’
‘But the Lieutenant makes sense. For Scot and Tarrant, it would have been the end of their dreams if Rainsborough had been known for a traitor. The Leveller hero; their hero. Tarrant would have got the Lieutenant crazy with anticipation, waiting for Rainsborough to betray himself.’ Shay was watching him, scratching his jaw discontentedly. ‘He did betray himself, and the Lieutenant saw what was happening, and was so outraged and so tight wound that he reacted immediately, even though it might cost him his own life.’
‘Which it did.’
Thurloe nodded. ‘He was killed immediately.’
‘Yes,’ Shay said slowly. ‘By Teach.’
‘Yes,’ said the echo. ‘By me.’
Miles Teach stepped out of the blackness behind Thurloe.
Shay had known he was there, but it still had his heart pounding. Thurloe’s heart all but exploded in his chest, spinning him round and thundering the blood through him.
Teach had his pistol out, levelled ready.
Shay said, ‘My apologies, Thurloe. I assumed he was here and I didn’t mention it. I’d wanted him along in case of difficulty, and I knew this was where he’d come if nowhere else.’ The words were steady, neutral. ‘This is Miles Teach; about the bravest fighter your General Cromwell has ever faced. Teach, this is Thurloe. About the cleverest man I’ve ever faced.’
Teach grunted. The pistol was firm. ‘He doesn’t look too clever at the moment.’
‘It’s been a night of surprises for him.’
Thurloe was sunk. A cold, hungry nausea swirled in his gut. For all his cleverness, he was still coming to terms with the plots and counter-plots. For all his caution, he’d been seduced by Shay’s congeniality and forgotten him for an enemy and now he was trapped, alone, by two of the most dangerous men in the country. He gazed at Teach, and then back at Shay, seeing him afresh. Two dead stone faces, implacable.
Shay said, ‘Thurloe has a pistol, Teach.’
‘He should drop it.’ Shay looked at Thurloe, almost scolding. Dumbly, slowly, Thurloe let his pistol drop to the ground.
Shay nodded, then glanced at the table where his own pistol and the dead soldier’s remained. With another glance at Thurloe, he pulled them both closer to himself, an extra second’s glance at them, mind galloping. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Now that things are a little more certain, we can finish that conversation.’
‘You seemed to have it pretty tidy.’
Shay gazed at Teach. ‘I’m not sure. It still feels wrong to me. Bits that don’t quite fit.’
Teach, flat: ‘But now you’ve run out of men to ask.’
Thurloe, forlorn, said dully: ‘Thomas Paulden in the Netherlands said that if I met a man who talked of the history of Doncaster, I would learn the truth.’ He added sourly, ‘Why don’t the two of you go and join him, and you can please yourselves?’
Shay had opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a stifled gasp, and then he was lost in a frown. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, I see.’
Thurloe: ‘I’m so glad.’
‘The history of Doncaster. Not Rainsborough.’ Shay’s eyes were moving between Thurloe and Teach beyond him. ‘Rainsborough’s Lieutenant. According to Austwick, just before the scuffle the Lieutenant started cursing too, by St Nicholas and St James.’
‘The Lieutenant? But—’
‘St Nicholas and St James are the old hospitals in Doncaster. That’s what Thomas Paulden was telling you; that was the phrase of recognition, the signal his brother said to listen for.’ A weary sigh. ‘We thought that Rainsborough said something that caused the Lieutenant to attack him. But it was the opposite. Rainsborough couldn’t believe how easily the raiders had got to him; he was suspicious as well as angry. Something in the words or the reaction made him realize that his Lieutenant was involved, and he went wild.’ He nodded to himself. ‘The Lieutenant was the man passing information out to Pontefract.’ Thurloe was listening intently, caught up in the story again. ‘That’s much more likely than Rainsborough himself, isn’t it?’
Thurloe nodded. ‘And it was the Lieutenant who’d let the raiders in.’ He glanced over his shoulder.
‘Yes. And now it makes more sense that the man who was most awake put up least resistance. He’d sent to Pontefract for help, and help had been arranged. He made sure he was on duty. He made it all easy for the raiders to get him out.’
‘But it still went wrong.’
‘For the Lieutenant, yes. It did.’ Shay wasn’t looking at Thurloe any more. ‘But not for the man who had planned the whole affair.’
Miles Teach: a face and a pistol of rock.
Thurloe started to speak, but no one was paying attention.
‘Again, what actually happened that morning?’ Shay’s voice was grim. ‘In Pontefract, there’s a man passing information to Doncaster. In Doncaster, there’s a man passing information to Pontefract: the Lieutenant who, through Rainsborough, would know about the information coming out of Pontefract. Two men: the spy in Pontefract, and the Lieutenant in Doncaster who’d be the one man likely to know of the spy’s existence and be worried by it. That’s it. And then, in the middle of a lot of meaningless chaos, the Lieutenant is killed by Miles Teach.’
Thurloe had the logic but was trying to grapple with the implications, eyes flicking back and forth between the two unmoving men.
Shay smiled, rueful, bleak. ‘My mistake, Thurloe. The night’s biggest surprise was for me. Miles Teach is your spy. Aren’t you, Teach?’
Nothing. A flicker on Teach’s lips.
‘You’ve been on the edge of the Court for years, and when you weren’t there you were in the front rank of battle. You’ve sold it all: royal secrets, campaign plans. Gods, no wonder George Astbury was so haunted. He knew something like this was happening. And it was you who put the Parliament intelligencers onto Ruce, the Scoutmaster. Astbury guessed there had to be someone like you; the link couldn’t have been established without some middle-man who knew Ruce’s weaknesses and knew someone who’d benefit. You gave Cromwell Naseby, and you gave him Preston.’
The flicker on Teach’s lips thickened into a dead smile.
Shay shook his head. ‘And Doncaster: the story has been eating at me for three years. Always a piece missing. You.’ Teach’s eyebrows shifted, indifferent. ‘You claimed that Paulden and Austwick drove the affair; but it’s clear from their characters that you’re a much more likely leader. You and William Paulden managed communications out of Pontefract, but I think that you sent that final message to the agent in Doncaster. You claimed the agent was supposed to contact Thomas Paulden, at the bridge, but William Paulden didn’t think it was so specific, and you sent Thomas Paulden ahead to get him out of the way of the inn. Even with the Lieutenant on your side, it was risky having so small a party; but you wanted to minimize the number of people – increase your command of the situation.’ He shook his head. ‘It was supposed to be a kidnap of Rainsborough, and a rescue of the Lieutenant, but you hadn’t brought extra horses.’
At that, a slight nod of acknowledgement from Teach.
‘When the man Tarrant came to Doncaster and confronted Rainsborough, the Lieutenant heard it and knew he was in trouble. He sent a frantic message to the Royalists in Pontefract for help, warning them that they had a spy among them. But the man who received this report was himself the spy: you.’
‘Yes.’
For Thurloe it all made sense, but the single word from the silent Teach came unexpected.
‘You set him for death. At any moment he might put something in a messa
ge to Pontefract, a message that you might not get to first, a message that would ruin you. You’d no idea who he was, and he was out of your reach, but you devised a way to lure him out and to get him to identify himself. You proposed a plan for his escape, and you gathered unknowing accomplices, and you rode in and he revealed himself and you cut him down in the gutter.’
Nothing from Teach. Very slowly, movements open and deliberate, Shay picked up the two pistols from the table, eyes on Teach. He gave one to Thurloe – it was the dead soldier’s – and Thurloe took it and suddenly understood that the game had swung in his favour. He held the pistol more certainly, and stepped back, the barrel levelled at Shay’s stomach.
Shay watched the movement, impassive, and then held out his own pistol towards Teach’s gun hand, outside the arm: no threats, no mistakes. Teach said, ‘Watch him, Thurloe,’ and swiftly shifted his own pistol to his left hand and took Shay’s in his right. Thurloe was concentrating hard. Once again he had Royalism’s greatest agent in his control: no hesitation or over-cleverness now. But there was still something nagging at him, something odd in what he was seeing or hearing.
Shay took three steps back again. ‘Astbury suspected you were double-dealing,’ he said to Teach. ‘He sent you to Pontefract as a test. He would have you watched, he would check your reports.’
‘Yes. William Paulden was watching me. So much I realized. After the raid on Doncaster – the business of the messages in and out, and the word of recognition – he grew very suspicious. And so William Paulden died of a fever, quite suddenly.’
Shay grunted. ‘Very tidy. And Astbury was already dead by then. In desperation, he’d sent a man to bring out one of your reports: not the summaries that Reverend Beaumont was making and sending out to him routinely, but one of the original documents.’ He reached into his jacket – a smile at Teach’s hiss of caution – and pulled out the worn page. ‘This. Did your reports to him also have a message for Thomas Scot? Did something in this tell him that truth at last?’
Teach shrugged. Thurloe said, ‘Lyle – Scot’s man in Doncaster – had a kind of template: a page with small holes cut in it at odd intervals. If he held that over a page of writing, it would show particular letters.’
Teach smiled without warmth. ‘That’s right.’ He let his own gun drop in its sling, and with his left hand he pulled a piece of paper from an inner pocket and flapped it open. Thurloe saw the pattern of holes. ‘Like this? My messages to Beaumont and Astbury went via a church. Left in the porch at the start of service, collected from the porch at the end.’ He pushed the paper into his jacket again. ‘The Parliament men had time for a look in the middle, while the faithful were at their prayers.’
Shay was peering at Teach’s report in his hand. ‘Perhaps it’s fancy, but the paper seems a little dirtier over some letters. Perhaps Lyle was a bit careless checking it: a greasy hand brushed over the template to hold it down.’ He looked up. ‘Perhaps, at the very end, George Astbury knew for certain that he was betrayed.’
Teach shrugged.
Then Shay was suddenly cold, and staring bleak. ‘Vyse. Young Hal Vyse. He died of a fever, too, didn’t he? At Worcester, quite suddenly.’
Teach nodded, impassive. ‘He saw the cypher template.’ He patted the pocket. ‘I explained it away right enough, but he was suspicious. Kept asking questions. I knew he’d talk about it sooner or later.’ He shrugged. ‘Pity.’
He looked more closely at Shay, at the winter face. ‘Lord, that’s fallen harder than any of it. I was right. You’re an old sentimentalist, Shay. I’ve been crossing the lines for years, selling you and your cause on the nail. And after it all, it’s the death of that boy that gets through to you.’
Thurloe said quietly, ‘Why did you do it, Mr Teach? Why work for us?’
‘Why? For money. For myself.’ He was clearly surprised at the question. ‘I certainly wasn’t working for you.’
Thurloe couldn’t help himself. ‘That was all?’
‘Master Thurloe, I had a monarchy capable in the same breath of allying itself to the most stubborn Protestants and the most brutal Catholics. Shay here has worked hard to ensure English defeat at the hands of both Irish and Scottish armies. Parliament splits once a year, and now depends on the Army. The Army is a muddle of every kind of social and political nonsense. In the end, all I could rely on was myself, and all I could honestly fight for was myself.’
He smiled fully for the first time. ‘Your friends have paid me most generously. As have Shay’s people before now. Before Dunbar it looked like I’d be firmly back in royal pay. The Worcester campaign was never a strong bet, but you keep your options open. I wasn’t sure which way tonight would go. A man can’t be particular.’
The pistol was still firm, and the eyes followed it to Shay again. ‘I’m afraid, old friend, I end the night on Parliament’s side.’ He smiled the dead smile again. ‘Don’t worry: once you and your uncomfortable truths are out of the way, I’ll be sure to keep contact with our comrades in the Netherlands.’ He nodded towards Thurloe. ‘These Parliament men seem open-minded about these affairs. They’ve never known my identity, but they pay brisk enough.’
Thurloe couldn’t escape the nagging in his head; declensions that did not seem to match; a sentence that made no sense. Dimly, he said to Shay, ‘You’ll be tried for—’
Shay cut in. ‘I fear Teach has a swifter justice in mind. And with my own pistol.’ He smiled heavily.
Thurloe looked at Teach, the steady pistol, the dead eyes. These are the men of my world now. He stepped back.
Shay said, ‘It’s all in your hands now, Thurloe,’ and again the uneasy sense of something forgotten kicked at Thurloe.
The pistols. The pistols from the duel in the marsh. A gunshot out of the sea; a body toppling into the marsh.
Shay leaned back against the table, hands lightly on its edge, watching the two barrels pointing at him.
Teach said, ‘Good night, Shay,’ and the pistol clicked.
Empty.
An instant of irritation, no more than an instant from Teach the warrior, already reaching for his own pistol and his knife, and in that instant Shay launched himself forwards.
But as he pushed off against the table, surely so solid in place after all the years, it gave way behind him with an ungainly scrape and Shay stumbled with it, scrambling for balance and knowing he’d lost. A brief gasp from Teach, amused at his luck, and he’d time to switch the second pistol to his stronger hand and up it came ready, and Thurloe snatched at an action on instinct, and this time the blast cracked across the chapel.
Teach was bewildered, hurting: the shot had come but he’d not fired; he still couldn’t see the pistol thrust under Thurloe’s arm towards him, but he could feel the sting of its wound in his shoulder and the numbness in his gun arm and now Shay was on him. The great old body drove him back and off his feet and down into the dust and two hands clamped at his throat. Teach scrabbled and grappled with weakened fists and desperate knees but Shay’s body would feel no injury and his big fingers clenched fierce and would never slacken and Teach flailed and choked and the flat eyes flared finally into terrified life, and for half a minute he was a desperate, spasming trapped animal, and his anguished throat managed one last crackle and failed him.
Shay rolled away, finished. Several deep gasps, and the trembling of old limbs, and then he scrambled round again and pulled the knife from his boot and stabbed Teach in the heart. ‘Not for a King,’ he said, hoarse and soft. ‘Not for a country. But for all the lads who’ll never know a future.’
He clambered to his feet, still breathing heavy, and went to the chair and dropped into it. He looked at Thurloe, at the pistol still smoking in his hand, and at the scorching in his armpit. ‘That’s a good trick,’ he said.
‘I saw it at Nottingham Castle. A long time ago.’
Real surprise. ‘That was you?’ And Shay chuckled. He glanced at Teach’s body, and up again. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expec
t that.’
Thurloe was still looking at the corpse. ‘Neither did I.’ He looked round to Shay, and his voice came vehement. ‘I am full sick of these games, old man.’ Then, softer: ‘I think – I think that I want truth; and this was a man become made wholly of lies.’
‘Lad, I don’t seek your motives; but I’ll take the result.’ Less briskly: ‘He’d have killed you too. Inconvenient, especially now you knew his identity.’
‘I could have killed you. You gave me the loaded pistol.’ An uncomfortable grunt. ‘You knew I’d be less danger with it.’
‘Let’s say that I would rather trust my fate – and this country’s fate – to you than to Miles Teach. But. . . I no longer care either way. I am done.’
Thurloe nodded back towards the body. ‘You seemed committed enough.’
‘That? Revenge. Brute revenge. For a beautiful boy, and his beautiful mother, and all that they represented.’ He let out a great breath, of sadness, of release. ‘I’ve done my duty, Thurloe. I’ve saved what I could. The last things that I needed to protect went safely off in that boat tonight. The field is yours.’
‘Mine? I’m a hunted man.’
‘Who says so? It’s been a confused day. Everyone who knew that you helped Rachel to escape is dead; my gift to you. A Royalist spy escaped to sea, but you chased as hard as you could. She had an accomplice, yes.’ He pointed at Teach. ‘Your prize.’
‘Thomas Scot will suspect me – does suspect me.’
‘I have made one or two preparations that are yet to come to fruition. You’ll find that Master Thomas Scot has some disappointments coming to him. Some embarrassing failures.’
‘You said. . . you don’t care? You – the man who has single-handedly brought carnage across the country for three whole years? I don’t believe it.’
‘What I cared about is with God; or with the Dutch, at least, which is close enough for now. I have nothing left. No cause to hide behind, no cause to justify my passions. Teach was a rogue, but I cannot blame him. When the King of England invades England with Scottish soldiers, and invades again, and thousands die, where is England’s stability? I. . . I clung to a fugitive idea of it – and in the end I lost my way.’
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