Georgette Heyer by Royal Escape

wondering whether he would swoon, and what to do for him if he did. He left him for a few moments to take a hasty survey of the road. There was no one in sight, and he went back to the King, who was sitting with his chin in his hand. In repose, his face set into haggard lines, and his dark eyes made Richard feel uncom fortable, so deep was their melancholy. He understood that the King was cast down by his defeat, and wished that he were a lettered man who would be able to offer words of comfort. For himself, crowns and kingdoms were so remote that he could not well appre ciate what it must mean to be a King, and to lose both. All he could think of to say was: 'I do fear that your honour is very discomfortable.'
      The King looked up, and forced a smile to his lips. 'No, I like it very well. I am only a little tired.'
      'Ay, and if your honour would like to sleep I'll keep safe watch, only it would be best I fetch Humphrey and Francis first, I was thinking.'
      'Do so, by all means. You have no need to fear for me: I shan't go to sleep.'
      A disturbing suspicion that he ought not to be left alone crossed Richard's mind, but as his common sense told him that the wisest course would be to enlist his brother and Yates as scouts, he decided to take the King at his word, and to go as quickly as he could, and be back again before any but farm-hands could be expected to be abroad.
      Accordingly, he took his leave, relieved that the King was so calm and, apparently, unafraid.
      For a long time after he had departed, Charles sat motionless, his tired brain working over every stage of the previous day's battle. Until this moment, he had found himself unable to think clearly, for although he had ridden through the night in profound abstraction, his thoughts had kept the rhythm of the hoof-beats, and, instead of sober consideration, useless phrases had drummed repeatedly in his head. Voices had seemed to clamour ceaselessly all about him; and the need to keep his attention fixed on his horse, who at any moment might have stumbled and come down in the darkness, had precluded the possibility of consecutive thought.
      Nothing could be more painful, or to less purpose, than a revision of his misfortunes at Worcester. From the moment of his realization that the Scots horse had failed him, events had moved with a tragic and irre vocable swiftness which seemed to set this hour and yesterday's same hour an age apart. Perhaps Leslie had been an ill choice for General, yet whom else could he have appointed? 'A natural graceless man whom the Lord would never bless with success,' a fellow-officer had called him once.
      But his misfortunes dated farther back than yesterday. The English levies, whom he had expected to join him upon his crossing the border, had hung back. His brain slid to the day of his muster at Pitchcroft, beyond the walls of Worcester. So few had come to the raising of his standard! The English did not like the Scots who accompanied him; they mistrusted the Covenant ing part of his army. Massey was largely to blame for that. He had been sent ahead with his troops on the road south from Carlisle to recruit the English, but his stern Presbyterianism had caused him to flaunt the Covenant, and before he could be checked the mischief had been done.
      The vista of ill-luck seemed to widen, to stretch slowly backwards, unfolding itself before the King's eyes. He lived again the moment of hearing of his brother-in-law's death, and, now that his desperate bid for his inheritance had failed, knew a feeling of blankness. William of Orange had been a good friend to him; indeed, to all his unhappy family. With a wry smile, the King remembered that it had been William who had paid for the mourning he had worn after his father's death. William's purse, William's wise counsel, had throughout been at his service. The future, bleak enough in all conscience, would be the bleaker for his death.
      Dunbar: but that defeat had