very much, sir.’
‘A tidy inn this, Master Farthing. Good luck to you.’ And the big man was gone.
As Shay stepped back into the inn yard, the smell was nagging at him again – not horses, surely; sweeter, more exotic – and finally he saw it: an apothecary’s shop backed onto the yard too: a dark doorway, green things in its shadows, strange small sacks and boxes around it.
The name – Staurby – would need to be changed.
For a moment, Shay had wondered at what he might have missed in the letters that Farthing had dutifully burned. The thought faded quickly.
If I am to fret, it must be about the book.
But now he felt something building in him, some excitement or strength. The men of shadows had decided to legitimize that unknown knife-thrust on Preston field. Now he had ears in every significant chamber in the kingdom, eyes on every desk. Now all England spoke to him. Once again, he was master of the network of the Comptrollerate-General.
The first of the two reports retrieved from the Jug Inn was the last report out of Colchester, written on 27th August and rightly predicting the town’s fall the following day. Shay read the summary of the last futile flickers of pride and nobility with irritation suppressing sympathy. The second report was much shorter, and more recent.
Sir, this by my hand but to pass you the words of another. I learn that Sir Thomas Fairfax has completed his new dispositions in and around the fallen town of Colchester. The people of that place, with one day of warm thin soup in their bellies, have quite forgot that they ever knew or had a King, and the blood yet undried where poor Lucas and Lisle were slain. Colonel Thomas Rainesborowe is detached by General Fairfax to join the siege of Pontefract.
Faithfully, T. S.
[SS C/S/48/10]
Sir Mortimer Shay: away from Stoke now and a shadow against a beech-trunk under the low roof of its branches.
And why in God’s name do I care for Colchester’s hungry and for this Colonel?
A shake of the head at his predecessor’s diversion of resources into inefficient irrelevance.
Once again, he reached into an inner pocket and removed the page recovered from George Astbury’s body on Preston field. A simple report – almost routine – from inside besieged Pontefract, and he wondered at it.
At least once in a week, usually on a Saturday when the King slept in the afternoon, or when he had adequate other company, William Seymour would beg permission from the castle Governor to walk down to the river. The begging was a humiliating business, and the answer inconsistent, but the Governor was not a bad fellow – and where, after all, could he really get to on the island?
His regular path took him down through the town – the temporary sensation of freedom, of air that was really his, enabled him to endure the wide eyes of the peasants, the pointing – to where the Medina river became the estuary, and so on towards the sea.
Always a sentry came with him. It was a routine of habit, of discipline, for he had nowhere to escape to and they probably wouldn’t care if he did. But it confirmed that he was different from other men now – a member of a new and more select aristocracy, of the isolated, the unfree. The world he had roamed had shrunk now, to the world of that little majesty in his closely watched rooms in the castle, to the castle grounds, to the views around the Isle of Wight from the battlements, to this one merciful breath of air, the fetid closeness of the town and the empty freshness of the river.
It was colder today. Autumn was slowing, shrinking towards death. The riverbanks were darkening as the leaves turned and fell, and the colours were becoming simpler and starker: the grey flicker of the water, the sterile wall of sky. There were few boats on the estuary, and no travellers on the path today. Ahead, a rowing boat had been pulled half out of the water onto the bank, two men pottering slow around it.
He strode on,
‘A tidy inn this, Master Farthing. Good luck to you.’ And the big man was gone.
As Shay stepped back into the inn yard, the smell was nagging at him again – not horses, surely; sweeter, more exotic – and finally he saw it: an apothecary’s shop backed onto the yard too: a dark doorway, green things in its shadows, strange small sacks and boxes around it.
The name – Staurby – would need to be changed.
For a moment, Shay had wondered at what he might have missed in the letters that Farthing had dutifully burned. The thought faded quickly.
If I am to fret, it must be about the book.
But now he felt something building in him, some excitement or strength. The men of shadows had decided to legitimize that unknown knife-thrust on Preston field. Now he had ears in every significant chamber in the kingdom, eyes on every desk. Now all England spoke to him. Once again, he was master of the network of the Comptrollerate-General.
The first of the two reports retrieved from the Jug Inn was the last report out of Colchester, written on 27th August and rightly predicting the town’s fall the following day. Shay read the summary of the last futile flickers of pride and nobility with irritation suppressing sympathy. The second report was much shorter, and more recent.
Sir, this by my hand but to pass you the words of another. I learn that Sir Thomas Fairfax has completed his new dispositions in and around the fallen town of Colchester. The people of that place, with one day of warm thin soup in their bellies, have quite forgot that they ever knew or had a King, and the blood yet undried where poor Lucas and Lisle were slain. Colonel Thomas Rainesborowe is detached by General Fairfax to join the siege of Pontefract.
Faithfully, T. S.
[SS C/S/48/10]
Sir Mortimer Shay: away from Stoke now and a shadow against a beech-trunk under the low roof of its branches.
And why in God’s name do I care for Colchester’s hungry and for this Colonel?
A shake of the head at his predecessor’s diversion of resources into inefficient irrelevance.
Once again, he reached into an inner pocket and removed the page recovered from George Astbury’s body on Preston field. A simple report – almost routine – from inside besieged Pontefract, and he wondered at it.
At least once in a week, usually on a Saturday when the King slept in the afternoon, or when he had adequate other company, William Seymour would beg permission from the castle Governor to walk down to the river. The begging was a humiliating business, and the answer inconsistent, but the Governor was not a bad fellow – and where, after all, could he really get to on the island?
His regular path took him down through the town – the temporary sensation of freedom, of air that was really his, enabled him to endure the wide eyes of the peasants, the pointing – to where the Medina river became the estuary, and so on towards the sea.
Always a sentry came with him. It was a routine of habit, of discipline, for he had nowhere to escape to and they probably wouldn’t care if he did. But it confirmed that he was different from other men now – a member of a new and more select aristocracy, of the isolated, the unfree. The world he had roamed had shrunk now, to the world of that little majesty in his closely watched rooms in the castle, to the castle grounds, to the views around the Isle of Wight from the battlements, to this one merciful breath of air, the fetid closeness of the town and the empty freshness of the river.
It was colder today. Autumn was slowing, shrinking towards death. The riverbanks were darkening as the leaves turned and fell, and the colours were becoming simpler and starker: the grey flicker of the water, the sterile wall of sky. There were few boats on the estuary, and no travellers on the path today. Ahead, a rowing boat had been pulled half out of the water onto the bank, two men pottering slow around it.
He strode on,
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