The King's Man (30 page)

"Indeed? How presumptuous of him.” Thurloe raised an eyebrow. “Does it concern a meeting?"

"Yes."

Thurloe nodded. “Very well, consider your debt discharged, Mistress Granville. Now the message, please."

She repeated Kit's message and Thurloe, his fingertips pressed together, nodded approvingly.

"You've done well, Mistress Granville. You may give Captain Lovell a message from me. Firstly you must tell him that the arrangements must go ahead as described. You may also tell him that if he is right and there is a satisfactory conclusion to this matter, then his debt to me will also be considered discharged."

"What is your hold over him?” Thamsine asked.

"That is between Captain Lovell and myself, Mistress Granville. Now good day to you."

Thamsine hesitated at the door. “Lovell,” she said, turning back to look at him. “My name is Lovell. We were married a week ago."

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. “Mistress Lovell."

The room seemed very still. Thamsine turned from the window where she had watched the tall, lanky figure of the schoolteacher striding away from the inn, his head lowered against the cold rain.

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 turned to face him. “I think it's time you told me what Thurloe's hold over you is."

"So you want to hear my confession, do you?"

"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 honorable."

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 she was 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 had my brother. Did I mention I had a brother?"

Thamsine frowned and 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."

"Is that your family home?"

"What's left of it. 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 was 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, young, fearless and spoiling for a battle. Just as I had been ten years earlier."

"Like Edward!"

"Indeed. I boasted of the high times and glory we would see. I didn't think, didn't notice that he hung on every word. He begged to come with me and I agreed to take him. My stepmother was hysterical but she could no more have stopped him than I. Far better to let him go. I promised to look after him.” 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 the months after the battle, I thought he was dead."

"But he survived?"

"Six months after Worcester, Thurloe came to Warwick Castle where I was held, with his proposition. He took me 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 cooperated he would be dead within 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 are treated like animals and those that 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 Scottish prisoners. 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."

"Do you know?” Thamsine swallowed. “Is Daniel is still alive?"

"Thurloe says he is and I would rather live with that hope than see England plunged into civil war again.” He looked back at Thamsine. “It was all Thurloe needed to secure my cooperation. It came to a simple choice between my brother's life and some old comrades in arms who wouldn't have given a damn whether I lived or died, 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 frowned. “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 honor. There is no honor 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."

Thamsine shook her head. “You're right, I don't understand ‘honor'. 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, I intend to cede my claim on the title to him, and 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."

Thamsine smiled. “So I won't be a Viscountess?"

"Does it matter?"

She shook her head. “No.” She paused. “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. 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.

She looked at his face, pale and pinched beneath the bruising.

"I'll bring you some supper and then you can sleep."

The taproom was quiet and as soon as she had a chance, Thamsine 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

"What are you doing?” she exclaimed, nearly dropping the tray she carried.

"Looking for my clothes,” he said petulantly. His hair, tangled and still matted with his blood, stood on end and his bruised face was taut and grey with pain.

"Why do you want your clothes?"

"I have to warn them,” he said.

Thamsine knew he spoke of the conspirators who gathered 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 set the tray down on the table and dived for him as his knees began to buckle.

He subsided onto the bed, his breath coming in short gasps. She sat down beside him.

"It's too late for conscience now, Kit,” she said earnestly.

He turned his head to look at her. “They'll hang, Thamsine."

"You knew that, Kit.” She gently stroked the hair away from his eyes.

His beautiful grey-green eyes, dulled by pain and anguish, turned to her. 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 a corner of the room, his shoulders rising and falling with every painful breath.

"All right,” he said at last.

She stood to go.

"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 heaved with horses and soldiers. Thamsine 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 happening here?” She asked, jerking her head at the scene in the street.

"Traitors,” the soldier said. “You head off home. The night's no place for pleasant strolls."

Thamsine returned to the inn with a heavy heart. 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 don't know. Redeemed myself somehow?"

"You've done enough. You were always playing a dangerous game. You knew the price and you could have lost your chance to see Daniel again. 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, Thamsine.” 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.

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 on to the stool. After only three days, her natural good spirits were returning but she had moments of terrible melancholy and Thamsine recognized 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.

"It's all right. 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 that after three days were already fading to a purple-green.

"I don't think it does, May, not really. It will always be there."

"I've always liked a bit of a romp wiv a man,” she said. “No harm done, a bit of fun and a shilling perhaps for later but always my choice. Never had to do it, 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 looked up at her. “Is that you think?” May managed a weak smile. “I'll be fine. Just see if I'm not!"

Thamsine reached out for the girl's hand, unable to offer her any more reassurance.

"I'll see the brute dead! You have my word on that."

Both women turned sharply. Kit sat 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 humor, “but I'm not going to lie in bed being fussed over any longer. Three days with you withering 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 painfully to his feet and holding his ribs with his good hand, limped over to the chair where he subsided slowly.

Thamsine poured him a cup of small ale and he drank it slowly.

"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."