The South Lawn Plot

by Ray O'Hanlon

  At the same time, with the big move looming ever closer, both were quite happy being princes of Denmark, for now. Besides, they were still exhausted after all the St. Patrick's Day ballyhoo.

  “I feel like something Greek.” Margaret Morris was impatient.

  “I know a guy named Zorba,” Manning cracked.

  Nesbitt, eyes rolling, took the bait. “Zorba who?”

  “Exzorbatent,” said Manning.

  “Oh, God,” said Nesbitt, reaching for his London Fog coat. Manning teased him about it constantly.

  “Here comes the CIA. How many spooks have you caught today?” Manning would chant any time he felt like taking a dig.

  Nesbitt, however, refused to take any notice. He liked his coat because, he said, it helped him merge with the natives more easily on the Metro. He reckoned there was less chance of being mugged. Muggers might think he was an FBI agent, or better still, a defense attorney.

  Manning remained at his desk. “You two go along. I forgot, Rebecca made me a sandwich. We're trying to save a bit. Remember we're taking Jessica on a trip for her spring break to Disneyworld. Bring me back some of that pastry stuff, whatever they call it.”

  “Baklava.” Nesbitt and Morris spoke almost together.

  “Yeah, Balaclava,”

  “We'll see you later,” Nesbitt replied, ignoring Manning's half-hearted attempt at a joke. “Evans is heading out for some boozy lunch and won't be back for ages, if at all, so we'll take our time. We bloody deserve the break, lunch just for us. And so do you. No work while we're away. Do the crossword or something, write your memoirs, that's an order.”

  Manning saluted, mockingly, as Nesbitt and Morris walked out the door, Nesbitt closing it after himself.

  Manning rose from his desk and walked to the window. A steady wind was blowing the tree branches from side to side. General Sheridan was charging across the traffic circle named after him. The view had been the same for months, but in recent days there had been the first signs of sprouting leaves. Spring was late this year, but it was on the way, galloping up like Little Phil.

  Manning turned and covered the couple of paces back to his desk. He fidgeted with a few papers and grabbed The Washington Post.The front page was dominated by reports of concern over Taiwan and the behavior of the Beijing leadership, both apparent and what the administration was guessing at.

  This could be interesting, he thought. His embassy might not be the outpost of a great military power but, yes, it was one of the European Union's now considerable cohort. If a war over Taiwan became a distinct possibility there would be a lot of coordinating to do with other EU embassies. Europe, led by the French, would probably end up jumping in the way of both the Americans and the Chinese.

  That might prove helpful, he thought. Or it could prove to be just a meaningless distraction if the two heavyweights decided to have a real showdown. What was certain was that the threat of a superpower confrontation would blow anything to do with Northern Ireland off the diplomatic grid. And that, Manning thought, was an additional complication he could well do without.

  No, he needed to keep the place front and center in the administration's imagination for just a few more weeks. It would be nothing like the 1990s, Bill Clinton and all of that. But it would be a little good news in a world dominated more and more by the bad. He would use that line about remembering the past so as not to repeat it, slip it into the ambassador's speech. He would use it even if he didn't want to believe it.

  Manning, above all things, wanted to forget his own past, bury it.

  He bowed his head. “Balaclava,” he said. “Jesus, if only they knew.”

  He took a deep breath. If they came at him with a demand in the middle of his work on the White House conference it would be more than he could handle.

  Manning's entire body shuddered at the thought. When the sensation had passed he sat rigidly still for a few moments, straight backed in his chair. He tipped his head back and wiped his eyes. To his embarrassment, they had welled up with tears.

  Maybe this time I'll just tell them to go to hell, he thought.

  39

  FALSHAM HAD REACHED THE FAR END of the meadow. Though the year was young the grass was well grown, and sheep were grazing only a short distance away, back toward the road leading to the house.

  It was early, the ground still damp and cold. A crescent moon sat low in the western sky while in the east one of the planets, Falsham was unsure which one but thought it to be Venus, was the last of the celestial lights still visible to the eye. Even if the sun was already above the horizon it would be hidden behind a dip in the land and line of distant treetops for some minutes yet.

  Falsham stopped and stared straight ahead. He could hear something working its way through the longest of the grass. Presently, the creature revealed itself to be a badger, as likely as not returning to its set for a day's rest. Falsham's eyes remained fixed on the animal as it made its way into the orchard whose trees were low to the ground and so heavy with old gnarled branches that they looked like an army of men, each of them waving a score of swords.

  The trees were far enough, Falsham decided and he turned. His boots, he noted with a silent appeal for God's grace, were soaked almost to the ankles. He looked at the sky and then across the way he had just come.

  The old man was still standing, leaning heavily on the stave. Behind him the stable boy held the two horses. It had been an effort to hoist Cole atop the beast to begin with and his managing to ride the horse almost to the Colchester road surely warranted the declaration of a miracle.

  Cole had survived the short journey, albeit in obvious discomfort and with much muttering and praying to various saints. The stable boy, by contrast, had uttered words that were far removed from holiness. The old man did not seem to hear.

  Falsham found himself smiling. They were, he thought, a rather shabby and absurd threesome: an old and dying man, a boy discontent beyond his years and he himself, who looked in certain lights like a Spanish pirate.

  He had listened for a full candle the night before as the old man laid forth his view of the perfect plot. But first he had dissected the imperfect ones, the Bye Plot, the so-called Main Plot, the Powder Plot, all of them aimed at ending the rule and life of the king.

  Cole had reasoned that the plots had failed because the central figures in each had allowed the ring of conspirators to grow too large. There had been, he insisted, too many plotters in places too far flung, one part not knowing what the other was thinking and planning.

  Also, Cole complained, with each knowing of the others from the start, one betrayal, a single confession under torture, was enough to doom all. The plotters, he argued, had also been too hasty in their preparation, too eager in their demand for, and expectation of, absolute and immediate fruition.

  A successful plot, he believed, might require many years. The plotters would have to behave as if they had no scheme in their minds to the point that they were above and beyond even the smallest suspicion. A plot, Cole proclaimed at the climax of his discourse, could be the entire span of a man's life, the entire life of a man the unfolding of the plot. Better to wait a score of years for success than try and fail in a day, he had said.

  Falsham had listened. He had raised no objection. He could find no fault in the old man's logic. What had troubled him was the thought of his entire life being little more than a vessel containing a slowly unwinding plan designed to kill this one king, or possibly his successor. Falsham understood the impatience of those who wished for speedy success. There would have to be, he thought, a middle way. But he had made no mention of this to the old man.

  Something made Falsham start, a sound, far off, but clearly audible; a firing piece. He began to walk back across the field, his left hand gripping and releasing the handle of his sword as he counted the paces back to his starting point.

  Falsham had suggested leaving his sword at the house but Cole had argued that he would look unnatural without it. Besides, he said
, the Scottish usurper - that was one of the kinder references he had made to the king this past while - might use it to knight Falsham on the spot. Had he not been handing out knighthoods up and down the realm like priests had once dispensed false indulgences?

  All too many of the dubbings, Cole complained, had made sirs of itinerant Scots who had, like starving dogs, trailed their sovereign down from the north land. But there was always the possibility that an Englishman might find instant favor with James, even one who looked more like a cutthroat from the back alleys of Valladolid.

  “I heard a noise, over beyond the trees,” Falsham said when he reached Cole.

  For a moment the old man did not respond. He was, again, praying.

  The boy was now some distance away, holding the horses as they joined the sheep in champing the wet grass.

  “O blessed Mary, virgin mother of God, look down with mercy upon England thy dowry and upon us all who hope and trust in thy benevolence. Intercede with your son who, by his power and mercy, can restore our separated brethren to the fold and the embrace of the one true shepherd and his faithful church.”

  “Amen,” said Falsham. “I did hear something, I am certain of it. Over there,” he said pointing slightly to the left of their position.

  “Yes, I believe you did hear something. I believe it to be a hunting horn. Our royal stag is not far, John. Not far.”

  Falsham nodded and shivered. He was still finding England not quite to his liking.

  “I was away too long in Spain,” he said. “I have forgotten the particular chill of an English morning.”

  Cole, still staring straight ahead, responded with a grunt. “There are some things that can be forgot and some that can never be,” he said. Then, after a short pause: “John, I do not expect you to carry through with my plan. If it fails your life will be, by all chances, forfeit. The king, or at least his agents, could well suspect you of being an accomplice and not their master's savior. If what we do is not to be seen as the act that it truly is, you must be at your most convincing. And that means my death must be convincing, quick, but as bloody as possible.”

  Falsham drew a deep breath. “You understand,” he said, “the hardest part for me will not end with your passing. I will not be able to grieve for you before all others. Indeed, I must exult in your demise, boast about my sword's swiftness and accuracy. It is damnable, damnable.”

  “It is necessary, and it is on the side of right,” Cole interrupted. “You will do what is necessary. Mourn me later when the throne is rightfully filled. Now one final time, John, recite to me the story that will bring you the king's favor.”

  Falsham sighed and shrugged. “I am my true name, John Peter Falsham” he said. “For many years I have fought in the armies of Europe as a mercenary, and that, of course, is true. I have fought on the side of the Roman faith and against it. Having learned of the sickness of my kinsman, he being you, I have returned. I find you indeed in a poor state and yet, I learn with complete surprise, that you have married and your wife is with child. I discover that she is afeared for her future and that of her child because her husband is of the old, the Romish faith. We have been drawn together in both heart and mind. She is of the new faith, as am I. Now that she is widowed, we petition your gracious majesty for the favor of a marriage and the right to raise a family in the heart of the new faith, in this house.”

  Falsham nodded his head for emphasis. It was, he thought, a simple plan with many simple dangers. He was about to make a small suggestion when something made his eyes turn. Looking down the road he could not see anything new or amiss. But he could hear it. And more than faintly. It was the pounding of hooves, a great many of them. He could also hear shouts and the sound of a hunting horn, very close now, and joined by another.

  Cole stiffened. He raised a withered arm and extended a finger, pointing. Falsham did not need to be directed. From where the road turned to the left, a group of about a dozen riders had come into view. After just a few moments a much larger group of horsemen could be seen. There were scores of them.

  “The king,” Falsham said quietly, and then in a louder voice, “and his pack of mounted hounds.”

  “The royal pack indeed,” Cole replied. “And rather more than I had expected. The dog has easily a hundred pups running with him. They cannot all stay in the house. However, I have heard it said that the king's party disperses among all the better houses in a district, the king himself staying in the grandest, and we, John, for certain possess the grandest in these parts. He must stay at Ayvebury. There is nothing else for it.”

  Falsham said nothing. His soldier's eye was taking in the spectacle. The first riders were clearly guards, soldiers, swordsmen. A small cluster of banners in the second group of riders was sure indication as to the location of the king, though it was not yet possible to distinguish him from the rest.

  Behind the second group came a stream of riders clearing the bend. It was an impressive sight. The leading horses were now so close that he could hear the beasts snort, see the cold breath being exhaled from their nostrils, make out the faces of the closest riders.

  Falsham glanced over his shoulder and what he saw was not to his liking. Their two mounts had bolted at the sight of the oncoming horde and were running across the field towards the orchard, the stable boy in reluctant pursuit.

  A simple plan, he thought again, and a simple error. He should have tied the beasts to a bush or tree.

  Cole did not seem to notice the fleeing nags and pursuing boy. He was transfixed by the oncoming phalanx, almost upon them.

  It was no overt act on the part of any rider that made Falsham act. It was the very lack of action instead. The leading horsemen were making no effort to slow their mounts. They had neither waved, nor wavered. They did not seem to notice the two-man welcoming party at all.

  “Blood of our savior,” Falsham cried as the horses bore down. For a big man he could be surprisingly agile, and it was with a single step and a swing of his powerful right arm that he plucked Cole from the earth and bore him into a thicket of brambles.

  The cavalcade swept past in a crescendo of hooves, metal and grunting animals. Clods of earth flew in all directions. Both men clapped eyes on the king at the same moment. He was easy enough to see when close. He and his mount, a black mare, were at the head of the second group of riders which was merging with the first. James sat erect, a little unnaturally so and in a fashion that would fast tire a man out over a long ride, Falsham thought. And he had what appeared to be a half smile on his face. This Falsham absorbed in an instant because in an instant the king had passed them by.

  Cole muttered something in Latin, more a curse than a prayer to Falsham's ear. And then out loud, in English: “Scottish cur.”

  40

  THE WINDOWS WERE ROLLED DOWN to allow the unseasonably warm air to pass through the car. The hedgerows were showing their first green but not so much that the verdant pastures of Essex were hidden from the car's occupants.

  Samantha Walsh dropped a gear as the vehicle closed in on a bend. The car, a sporty model hired for the trip, took the curve with ease.

  “You handle it well, I have to say,” said Nick Bailey.

  “And why do you have to say?” said Walsh as she pressed her foot on the pedal and took the car up to a notch over sixty. The road was now stretching out straight ahead for almost half a mile, an unusual occurrence in a part of the county known for narrow, twisting roads that were at times little more than country lanes.

  “I am a police officer, need I remind you. We learn to drive as if somebody else's life depends on it. And I'll have you know that I did do an advance pursuit course. Want to see?”

  “That's okay,” replied Bailey. “I'm quite enjoying the countryside rolling by. As opposed to flashing.”

  He smiled. She smiled and patted him on the arm.

  “If this was a James Bond flick you would be sitting in the ejector seat, so just count your blessings, Mr. Bailey.”

 
“I'm stirred, not shaken.”

  And so it went. The two had bantered since leaving London just after the morning rush hour. As much as possible, they had taken secondary roads. The car had a satellite guidance system, but they had kept it turned off, preferring instead to follow road signs with the names of villages that sounded like they were out of a guide to a lost, yet comforting, older England.

  A few miles behind them sat the village of Little Tipping Major, which, they had assumed, was the larger companion to Little Tipping Minor. In the pub where they had enjoyed lunch, Walsh and Bailey had been disappointed to hear that Major was in fact all alone in the world though they were not the first visitors to ask about Minor.

  The village itself was a biscuit box classic. It had a green, a duck pond and several cottages with thatched roofs, a luxury these days because of sky high insurance payments, but an obvious tourist draw. Lunch had been in a rose garden behind the sole village pub, the Ploughman's Rest, and though it was too early in the season for actual roses, the two had sat for a grateful hour nibbling at ham and water cress sandwiches and sipping ale, the local brew in Bailey's case, the ginger variety for the driver.

  It had been Walsh's idea to drive down to Essex. She had a few days before becoming fully immersed in her new assignment. The trip would be a nice break for both of them and might just answer the questions that had been nagging at her since that foggy night on the bridge.

  By a silent compact they had not actually discussed the reason for their journey while on the road. But that reason was becoming harder to ignore as the miles fell away. Their destination was now only six distant.

  The straight run quickly behind them, Walsh slowed at a particularly nasty turn. Her caution was well timed as a truck came roaring into view, moving at well over the speed limit.