The King's Man

by Alison Stuart

  Nan’s arm circled her shoulders, her head resting on her back. She heard the girl’s sobs but had no comfort for her.

  Kit was dead. Dead. The word reverberated in her mind. Everyone she had ever loved was dead. Even Jane would leave her before many more months were out.

  ‘Mistress is asking what the trouble is.’ Thamsine heard the maid’s voice.

  Nan rose to her feet. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her husband, you ninny,’ Nan bridled, ‘Here, she needs her sister, not us two useless lumps. Give us a hand.’

  Thamsine allowed herself to be lifted upright, supported on either side and led, almost as a blind person, to the chamber where Jane sat in a well-cushioned chair before the window. At the sight of Jane’s pale, anxious face looking up at her, full of concern and love, she ran to her sister. Like a child she fell at her feet, burying her face in Jane’s skirts.

  ‘Lovell?’ she heard Jane ask.

  Nan must have nodded. ‘Oh dearest,’ Jane whispered, stroking her hair.

  At the touch of the loving hand, the tears began, an unstoppable flood of grief.

  ‘There, you cry. ‘Tis the best thing you can do.’

  There was a pause and Jane’s tone changed as she addressed Nan.

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning,’ Nan replied. ‘They brought a letter for her.’ The letter Thamsine still held, crushed and unopened in her hand. ‘Mistress, I cannot stay. I’ve got the loan of Jack’s pony and he needs it back this afternoon.’

  ‘Thank you … ’ Jane hesitated. ‘ … Sorry, I can’t remember your name.’

  ‘Nan Marsh, ma’am. I’m a friend of Thamsine’s and Captain Lovell’s.’ Nan’s sharp voice cracked. ‘Anything we can do, Jem, May, and I, anything. We loved him too.’

  ‘Thank you, Nan,’ Jane said. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Peggy, see that Mistress Marsh gets some refreshment before she returns to London.’

  The door closed. Jane stooped and lifted Thamsine’s face.

  ‘Dearest, I’m so sorry.’

  Thamsine rose to her feet and, shaking off her sister’s hand, turned to look out at the garden, bright with summer flowers on a perfect, cloudless morning.

  She looked down at the paper in her hand and laid it on the windowsill, smoothing out the creases, trying to get some sense of the man who had written her name. So much life, snuffed out like a candle, reduced to a cold corpse. Yet he had been alive when he had written this. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since she had last seen him.

  She wondered where he was, what had they done with him. Had they buried him already? She frowned. Should she claim the body and return him to Eveleigh?

  She ran down the stairs to the kitchen, where she found Nan just about to leave.

  ‘Where is he, Nan?’

  The girl looked at her. ‘Jem asked where he were. Said you would want a proper burial for him but they said he were already … ’ The girl swallowed. ‘ … Already buried. There in the Tower. Do you want … ?’

  Thamsine gasped and recoiled. Even the simple act of laying him to rest had been denied her?

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let him be for now.’

  When she was stronger, when the shock had passed, then she would see Thurloe and claim him.

  Nan sniffed. ‘They brought his things. They’re at the Inn. I didn’t think to bring ’em with me.’

  Thamsine looked away as she struggled to regain her composure. She didn’t have the strength to make any decisions.

  ‘Keep them for me. I will send for them shortly.’ She threw her arms around her friend. ‘Thank you, Nan, thank you for everything.’

  After Nan had left, Thamsine returned to Jane’s room. Her sister had been weeping, her eyes red and swollen.

  Thamsine picked up the letter from the windowsill where she had left it and broke the seal.

  ‘Dearest Thamsine … ’ she read aloud.

  Her eyes filling with tears, she slid down to the floor and sat with her back against the wall, trying to decipher the terrible handwriting and make sense of Kit’s last words to her. With her forefinger she traced every letter.

  At least she had this. At least she knew he loved her. It was more than many women had. She thought of those women who had lost the men they loved in the long years of war. What comfort did they have?

  When she had finished, she pressed the paper to her lips and inhaled deeply, trying to see if some scent of him remained.

  ‘Thamsine, come here.’ Jane, who had been watching her without word, held out her hand.

  Thamsine rose slowly and slid to the floor at her sister’s feet, laying her head against her knee. Jane stroked the hair away from her forehead as if she were a child again, just as she had done when Thamsine’s mother had died.

  ‘What will you do?’ Jane asked.

  With a slight shake of her head, Thamsine replied. ‘I’ll stay with you, Jane. You and the girls are all I have left.’

  ‘I would like to go home, Thamsine, back to Hartley, where we were both happy. I want to die at Hartley, not here where there are so many difficult memories.’

  Hartley. Thamsine had not even thought about her family home, and now she felt it calling to her. Jane was right; London held too many difficult memories. At Hartley she could heal.

  Thamsine nodded. ‘I would like to do that, Jane,’ she said. ‘What about Roger?’

  Jane’s lips tightened. ‘Roger’s opinion is of no interest to me. We will leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Thamsine echoed.

  She leaned against her sister’s knee, drained of life, incapable of moving, thinking, and making decisions. She just wanted to sleep, to sleep and forget that the man she loved was dead.

  Chapter 22

  Beyond a darkness so profound that it had a force of its own, a distant light seemed to grow stronger and brighter. Kit took a step towards it, wanting to reach it with a desperate longing. He reached out his hand and took another step, but there were long fingers holding him, dragging him back into the darkness. He tried to cry out but could not make a sound. The light faded and a red-and-black mist of pain enveloped him.

  Distantly, he became aware of voices, and of searing pain as his lungs struggled to regain air. He opened his eyes. Heaven or Hell? Surely Hell. Heaven brought peace, not this torment of pain and bright colours that flashed before his eyes.

  ‘Praise the Lord, he’s coming around,’ a man said. ‘It seems he’ll live. Another couple of seconds and you would have been too late.’

  Live? He lived? Kit tried to say the word, but nothing came out but a strangled croak.

  A hand rested on his chest. ‘Don’t try to talk. It will be some time before you’ll talk again. There’s a great deal of bruising.’

  Kit put a hand to his throat and swallowed with difficulty.

  ‘Can you see?’ A bright light waved in front of his face and he put up a hand to shield his eyes from the intensity of the light that hid the man.

  The disembodied voice spoke again. ‘Lie quiet. There will be pain. That’s to be expected.’

  How had he not died? The memory of the rope closing on his throat came back with cruel, stark clarity. He put his hands to his throat and tried to swallow but even that simple movement made him cough. He ran his hands up his face and across his eyes. He had never experienced a headache like this before. It felt as if his temples would burst; his throat hurt unbearably and every breath seared in his lungs. Kit threw off the hand and tried to sit up but the effort was too much. He subsided, coughing, and his back arched in agony and his limbs shook uncontrollably. Strong hands held him down, forcing him back onto the bed. Someone held a cup to his lips and he gagged as a sweet liquid dribbled down his tortured throat. He must have slept. When he opened his eyes again, the light in the room seemed to have changed. He blinked, trying very hard to focus as he looked around the small room, but everything remained blurred. Pinpricks of light indicated the l
ocation of a brace of candles. A shadow moved into his line of sight. He squinted and could make out the outline of a man wearing the robes and tight-fitting cap of a physician.

  ‘He’s awake,’ the physician said, and Kit recognised him as being the man with the soothing, authoritative voice who had brought him back from the dead.

  Another shadow moved across his field of vision, leaning over him. He stood back, his arms crossed, one hand raised with his finger against his lips. Kit recognised the gesture, even if the face remained blurred.

  ‘Thurloe!’

  Nothing but a croak emanated from Kit’s throat. The effort caused a wracking coughing fit that made him contract in pain.

  ‘Welcome back, Captain Lovell. You had me worried. I thought for a moment I was too late.’

  ‘Why?’ This time something that vaguely resembled a word forced its way out of Kit’s lips.

  ‘It was the only way, Lovell,’ Thurloe replied. ‘We cut you down before any serious damage could be done. Although, as the physician said, probably just in time. You will hurt for a while but Dr Munn here assures me that you should make a full recovery.’

  Kit narrowed his eyes and stared at Thurloe, wishing his face would come into focus so he could look into his eyes and try to understand how this man could let him go to the gallows, just to snatch him back from the jaws of death.

  ‘I couldn’t save you from the gallows without it appearing suspicious.’ Thurloe read his mind again. ‘A last-minute reprieve was not possible without awkward questions. This way, Christopher Lovell is dead. You are free to start a new life. All debts repaid.’

  Kit shook his head. A mistake; the world roared in his ears and he pressed his hands to his head to try and ease the pain.

  The doctor raised his head and held a cup to his lips. Kit drank gratefully, the cool, unidentifiable liquid soothing the pain of his tortured throat.

  ‘Get him up,’ Thurloe said. ‘My coach is waiting.’

  ‘He needs rest,’ the doctor protested.

  ‘He can have plenty of rest, but I want him out of here. I want him off my hands.’

  Kit groaned as the doctor hauled him upright. It took both the doctor and Thurloe’s bulky coachman, who had to be summoned to assist, to half-carry, half-drag him downstairs and out through a sally port to where a coach stood waiting in the shadows.

  Kit subsided against the expensive leather seats and closed his eyes. Thurloe gave a sharp order and the coach moved off. He did not speak until it stopped again.

  ‘Ah, we’re here. Back to the warm and welcoming arms of your friends. All shuttered up, I see. There must have been a death in the family. Well, this is it, Lovell. This is farewell.’

  Thurloe’s voice came from the pale, disembodied circle of his face. He continued, ‘You will come to thank me, Lovell. You have your life and a chance to start again. However, I think it prudent you avoid your previous haunts for some time. Your Lazarine resurrection from the dead may excite comment among your former comrades. In a few years, maybe they will have forgotten about you.’

  The door of the coach opened.

  ‘Goodbye, Lovell,’ Thurloe said as his coachman hauled Kit bodily out of the coach and deposited him on the doorstep of The Ship Inn.

  The coachman banged on the door and left Kit balanced unsteadily against the doorjamb. By the time Kit heard footsteps on the flags of the taproom, Thurloe’s coach had gone.

  ‘We’re closed.’ Jem’s voice boomed gruffly from behind the door.

  Kit rested his face against the door and raised his hand to the wood, his feeble efforts making no more impression than the scratching of a mouse. He heard the bolt being drawn back and the door flung open. Kit got a brief impression of Jem’s surprised face before falling forward into his arms.

  There were voices in the dark, this time familiar voices.

  Nan Marsh’s said, ‘What sort of ’orrible joke is this?’

  ‘’Tis no joke,’ her brother replied. ‘’Tis Kit Lovell all right, and I can tell you this, girls, he ain’t dead. Fetch me some of the brandy.’

  Slowly, Kit opened his eyes and coughed. He heard a squeak of alarm and turned his throbbing head to find himself looking into the anxious face of May Marsh.

  She touched his face. Just the gentlest touch, but every nerve in his body cried out in pain.

  ‘You’re really alive! I can’t believe it.’

  Her face looked red and blotchy from crying. He reached out a hand to touch her face and she grasped his fingers, pressing his hand to her wet cheek.

  ‘Don’t cry, May,’ he said, or at least he thought the words came out, but she didn’t seem to hear.

  Jem Marsh’s ugly visage hove into view.

  ‘Don’t even try and talk, Lovell. I’ve seen this afore and it will be a while until you’ve a voice of your own.’ Jem’s arm slipped beneath his head and a cup of brandy was put to his lips. Kit let a little of the burning liquid slide down his throat. He gagged and coughed but life began to creep back into his fingers and toes.

  May gave a choking sob and tightened her grip on his fingers. ‘They told us you was dead and buried. They even brought a letter for Mistress Thamsine … ’

  A strangled groan emanated from Kit’s throat. He had written her a letter. Thamsine would think he was dead.

  He propped himself up on an elbow and scanned the faces in the room: Jem, May and Nan. No Thamsine.

  ‘She’s not here. She’s with her sister at Turnham Green.’ Jem answered the question in Kit’s eyes. ‘I’ll send May’s Tom in the morning to fetch her.’

  ‘Proper cut up she was when I told her … ’ Nan put in.

  Thamsine wasn’t here. She thought he was dead. Kit fell back and closed his eyes against this new pain. He wanted to hold her, to reassure himself that he had survived and they could be together.

  Jem brought the candle lower and turned Kit’s head, inspecting his neck.

  ‘Another minute on the gibbet and you’d’ve been done for,’ he said.

  Kit managed a nod of affirmation. Had this really been the only way Thurloe could find to save his life, or another of his cruel tricks?

  The memory of what he had thought his last moments on Earth forced their way into his aching mind with absolute clarity and he put a shaking hand to his eyes. Thurloe’s legacy would be a nightmare that would probably haunt him for the rest of his days.

  Jem put an arm around his shoulders and raised him to his feet.

  ‘Come on, lad. Let’s get you into a bed. We’ll hear the story when you’re able to tell it.’

  ~ * ~

  Thamsine leaned out of the coach window as they rounded the bend in the driveway that gave the first view of Hartley Court. It seemed a lifetime since she had fled its solid red brick walls, leaving Ambrose Morton lying in a pool of blood on the parlour floor.

  She sighed and glanced at her sister’s ashen face. She sat beside her husband, her fingers entwined in his. Roger had said little. He seemed to have gone into shock, unable to grasp the enormity of what now faced him. Ten-year-old Rachel slept with her head on her mother’s lap. The older girl, Rebecca, sat beside Thamsine reading a book of sermons. The journey had been a trial, but the dying woman had been insistent. Jane wanted to end her days at Hartley.

  Thamsine’s gloved hand tightened on the sash of the coach door. Soon there would be another death to mourn. In the days since Kit’s death, the living had commanded her attention and she had lavished her care on Jane. She dared not think about Kit. He was dead and beyond her love but Jane needed her. She knew the high tide of her suffering was yet to come. With Jane’s death, would it all be unleashed?

  She swallowed, forcing herself to think of the more pressing issue of her stepmother Isabelle, Ambrose Morton’s mother, who would be at Hartley Court to meet her. She could already picture Isabelle’s mean, pinched face, the thin lips dragging down at the corners. If Isabelle had disliked her before, her hatred would know no bounds when the woman who had
tried to murder her son returned.

  She had sent word ahead that they were to be expected but to her surprise, it was not Isabelle who stood on the doorstep but her steward, Stebbings. He stepped forward and opened the door to the coach.

  ‘Welcome home, Mistress Thamsine,’ he said with a broad smile. Then he flushed. ‘My apologies, Mistress Lovell.’

  ‘Thank you, Stebbings. Is everything prepared for my sister?’

  ‘It is. Mistress White has set aside the best bedchamber. Allow me … Mistress Knott … ’ He turned to Jane, assisting her from the coach and then, supporting her, assisted her inside the cool house.

  Thamsine let her servants and Roger settle Jane into the bedchamber. She wandered through the rooms, savouring the familiar smell of beeswax and lavender. Everything had been kept well in her absence. She supposed she should be grateful to Isabelle.

  Where was Isabelle? She frowned and sent for Stebbings.

  ‘Where is Mistress Granville?’

  Stebbings’ eyes widened. ‘You hadn’t heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Mistress Granville has been dead these three months past.’

  One should not speak ill of the dead, Thamsine thought, and bit her tongue against the cry of jubilation that rose in her throat.

  ‘What happened?’

  Stebbings’ lips tightened. ‘She was, as you know, rather partial to a little Canary wine in the evening … ’

  And the morning, and at lunchtime, Thamsine thought.

  ‘She took it into her head to walk to Beverstock to see her daughter, Mistress Anne. She went without a hat or cloak and was caught in a heavy rainstorm. We reckon she must have slipped and fallen into a ditch. We didn’t find her until morning and she died within the week.’

  ‘Where is she buried?’ Thamsine bit back the exultation in her voice. The poor woman was dead.

  Stebbings coughed discreetly. ‘As there was no one to make a decision, we had her interred in the family plot at Beverstock.’