Exile's Return (2 page)

‘Madam, it is my unhappy duty to inform you that the traitor James Ashby is dead,' Turner said, without a flicker of emotion in his face.

Agnes tightened her grip on the children's hands. Henry shrank back and Lizzie buried her face in the bunched skirts of Agnes's gown, muffling her sobs.

Taking a deep breath, Agnes gathered her courage to ask the question that had kept her wakeful for too many nights. ‘What is to become of the children?'

Turner glanced at Henry and Elizabeth with cold, dispassionate eyes.

‘You will be summoned to Whitehall when your petition has been considered by the Committee. In the meantime you are to remain here. You are not to leave London.'

‘I can only pray that will not be too long,' Agnes said, thinking of her empty purse. ‘The children should be returned to their home as soon as possible.'

Ignoring her, Turner turned to his men. ‘We have the traitor's personal possessions. Where do you want us to put them?'

Agnes's resolve buckled at the sight of the familiar metal-bound box that James had taken with him into the Tower. Only her need to stay calm for the children steadied her.

‘Well?' Turner demanded.

She waved vaguely at a dark corner of the inn room. ‘Over there. Tell me … was it … quick?''

The man considered her for a moment. ‘I was not present, but the Colonel assures me he died bravely and in the love of God, madam.'

Of course Tobias would have been there
.

Agnes straightened and replied in an icy tone, ‘That is of no comfort.'

Turner's gaze met hers and for a brief moment some emotion, anger or amusement, she could not tell, flashed in his eyes.

He inclined his head and half turned for the door. ‘I reiterate, you are not to leave London, Mistress Fletcher.'

‘Am I under arrest?' Agnes raised her chin, cursing her lack of inches.

The man shook his head. ‘No, but we will know if you try to leave and it will do your cause no favours.'

She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘And where would I go, Captain Turner? I have no money and no friends who would take us in.'

Not if they did not wish to incur the wrath of the children's only other living relative, Colonel Tobias Ashby. Tobias had been high in favour under Cromwell. Of course, since the Lord Protector's death the world had shifted on its axis, and she considered the betrayal of his cousin may have been Tobias's attempt to keep in favour with the new regime.

Agnes straightened. She could not imagine any other outcome other than a safe return home to Charvaley.

‘I will pray to God and put my trust in this Committee. I would remind you that I am the children's aunt and closer by blood than the Colonel,' she said.

Turner regarded her without expression. He had no interest in hearing her plead her case; his loyalty lay entirely with Tobias.

He inclined his head. ‘You will receive word when you are to appear before the Committee. Good day to you, madam.' He jerked his head at his soldiers. ‘Come.'

The door slammed closed behind them and Agnes's resolve failed. She sank to her knees, burying her face in her hands as she wept. This time the arms of the two children circled her, as they added their tears to hers.

Bruges, the Lowlands
October 27, 1659

Daniel Lovell stood at a window in the makeshift audience room, looking down at the canal below, along which a barge laden with wool, probably from England, made its leisurely way. A steady drizzle of rain ran down the lead panes of the windows, adding a general bleakness to the morning.

No one paid him any heed. Behind his back the courtiers, dressed in their finery, jabbered like parrots. A parody of a king's court, Daniel thought. Up close the frayed cuffs and patched linen of those same courtiers bore testament to the reality of life lived in the shadow of an exiled king.

When
L'Archange
had docked in Le Havre he could have taken ship for England, but he had come to Charles's court in Bruges for one reason only. The person he sought would not be found in England, not in the tumbled ruins of Eveleigh Priory. If his brother were still alive, he would be here with the King. If not, at least here he could find someone who could tell him where Kit — or his grave — could be found.

Below him the barge passed, and his thoughts were interrupted by the crash of a door opening. A sonorous voice announced the arrival of His Majesty. Daniel turned to face his King, sweeping, like the others, into a deep bow.

At the age of eighteen Daniel Lovell had gone into battle beside this man; both carried with them dreams of honour and glory and the rightful avenging of the deaths — no, murders — of their fathers.

At the end of that bloody day, the King had become a fugitive in his own land and Daniel, nursing a wound to his right arm, had huddled against the tomb of King John in the great Cathedral of Worcester, a prisoner like the hundreds of others who had survived the battle. With the cold stone pressed against his face, he had hoped that no one would notice the shaming tears of humiliation.

His idea of vengeance at the age of eighteen had been ill-conceived and vague. The naive boy who had donned his father's armour and taken up his sword had died that day as surely as if a sword had pierced his heart. Eight years of exile had honed his bitterness like a blade and now it sat on his shoulders like a carrion bird, picking at the shreds of his memory.

As he rose from his bow and looked into the dark, lined face of the King, it struck him that this man, only three years his senior, still had that indefinable aura that had inspired those who had answered his call all those years ago in the belief that they could vanquish Cromwell and regain the throne. But, like Daniel himself, the hopeful boy the King had been in 1651 had gone. Exile had aged Charles Stuart beyond his years.

Pausing only to acknowledge the presence of his most loyal subjects, the King strode the length of the room and slumped down on a high-backed chair, placed throne-like against the far wall.
A parody of a throne, in a parody of a court
, Daniel thought.

Charles scanned the room as if looking for someone.

‘Where is the man my cousin sent?' he demanded.

Daniel had presented himself to Sir Edward Hyde earlier that day, bearing letters from the King's cousin, Louis XIV of France. Now Hyde's gaze sought out Daniel standing at the window.

‘Come forward, Lovell,' he said.

Daniel squared his shoulders and stepped forward, bowing again to the King.

The King looked him up and down.

‘I thank you for your role as courier, Master Lovell,' he said. ‘I trust you found my cousin well?'

Daniel could afford to smile. His audience with Louis had been brief. On their return to France, Broussard had produced him as another trophy – the Englishman turned French privateer. It seemed to amuse Louis.

‘An English privateer on a French vessel?' Louis had enquired with a cocked eyebrow. ‘We have heard stories of the exploits of such an Englishman. What do they call you … ? Ah yes;
Le Loup Anglais
.'

‘I assure you, a reputation undeserved,' Daniel had responded.

On a ship of escaped slaves and convicts, the anonymity of a nickname, deserved or ironic, became part of the legend of
L'Archange
. However, in his case he knew the nickname, “the English Wolf”, had been earned.

L'Archange
needed to return to France for repairs, ending the career of the English Wolf. He had become once more plain Daniel Lovell, with letters bearing the royal seal of Louis XIV for his cousin Charles II of England.

‘Your cousin is a most interesting man,' Daniel replied to Charles's question.

‘Alas, I am something of an embarrassment to him.' Charles's hooded eyes seemed to recede further back in his skull at the thought of his cousin. ‘You look familiar, Lovell. Have we met before?'

The question surprised Daniel, reminding him once again that this man had the greatness of kings about him. ‘Once, briefly, a long time ago. At Worcester.'

The lines on Charles's face settled into deeper grooves. ‘Ah … Worcester … '

The atmosphere in the room shifted, an indefinable rustling like the dried leaves of an autumn tree. There would be many here who stood shoulder to shoulder with the King on that day.

Daniel nodded, and for a moment they were both transported back to that moment when two young men had thought they were invincible.

The King waved a forefinger at Daniel's face. ‘A legacy of Worcester?'

Daniel touched the scar that scribed his right cheekbone, serving as a visible reminder to all who saw him of that terrible day. Beneath his severe clothes, no one would see the other scars, the long lines that crossed his back and circled his wrists. Those too were a legacy of Worcester.

‘Hyde here tells me you have something of an interesting history. How did you come to be aboard a French privateer?'

Daniel hunched his shoulders, an almost unconscious habit he used to release the tautness of the scars that marred his back. He had been circumspect in how much he had revealed to Hyde and he repeated the story.

‘After Worcester, I was sent to Barbados,' he began, conscious of a murmur rising in the room behind him. Barbados had been a death sentence and he had survived.

‘I escaped the plantation to which I had been assigned and threw my lot in with the crew of
L'Archange
,' he said with a casual shrug.

A slow smile lightened the King's saturnine countenance. ‘I assume you had little alternative, my friend.'

Daniel ducked his head in agreement.

‘I'm not sure our friends in London have taken too kindly to the predation on English ships,' Hyde said.

Daniel fixed the courtier with a hard stare. ‘We carried
lettres de marque
from Louis. We were not pirates.'

The King's moustache twitched. ‘A fine distinction, my friend. Has it made you a wealthy man?'

Daniel hesitated. The five years of privateering had netted him a comfortable sum. Sufficient to restore a life in England he had not known since before the war, but hardly a fortune.

The King laughed and held up a hand. ‘You do not need to tell me. Indeed, I do not wish to know.' He leaned an elbow on the arm of his chair and inclined his head. ‘So why have you returned now?'

‘I heard that Cromwell is dead,' Daniel responded.

‘But you are still an escaped prisoner, are you not, and a privateer? No doubt there is a price on your head.' The King leaned his elbow on his chair, stroking his moustache.

Daniel shrugged. ‘Possibly, but that is not why I am here, Your Majesty. I am seeking news of my brother, Christopher Lovell. He –'

A hush fell on the room, and the back of Daniel's neck prickled.

‘Do you mean Kit Lovell?' Hyde asked.

The breath caught in Daniel's throat as the King frowned. ‘Lovell?'

‘You recall the man, Your Majesty. That affair of Gerard?' Hyde leaned down to whisper in the King's ear, and Daniel's sense of foreboding trebled.

‘Good God, I thought I knew your face.' An unfamiliar voice came from the courtiers behind him and, the tension broken, Daniel turned to see the speaker, a trim man of middle height with light brown hair curling to his shoulder.

He too looked familiar, but Daniel could not immediately place him. There had been many visitors to Eveleigh during the long years of the war. He could have been one of many.

‘Sir, you have the advantage of me,' Daniel responded.

‘Longley,' the man replied with a bow. ‘Giles Longley. We played cards on the eve of Worcester — your brother, Jonathan Thornton, and I. Do you recall?'

Daniel stared at the man as small snatches of memory began to snap into place. A card game on the eve of Worcester, Kit and his friends playing their last hand before the battle that would decide their fates. They had tried to warn him but he had not heeded their words.

The arrogance of youth.

In the long years that had followed, he had often wondered what had become of them, the men that he had called the Guardians of the Crown. In his mind they all lay dead on that field of battle.

If Longley still lived, then maybe there was hope for Kit?

Daniel swallowed. ‘A lifetime ago, my Lord,' he replied hoarsely.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the King glance at Hyde. Whatever private message passed between them, Hyde acknowledged it with a slight inclination of his head.

The King straightened in his chair. ‘You are welcome, Lovell. Welcome to my court and, God willing, soon to be welcome in a peaceful England.'

Daniel's lips curled. ‘I am not so certain of the last sentiment, Your Majesty. As you pointed out, there will be some in London who would like to see me hanged for my alleged crimes.'

‘They'll have to catch you first, my friend, and it seems you have your brother's aptitude for evasion. Longley,' the King indicated the dapper Viscount. ‘Take our friend Lovell and introduce him to the joys of this town. They do good ale, but not much else I am afraid, Lovell.'

Dismissed, Daniel bowed and left the room, his question unanswered.

***

‘Tell me, Lovell, why have you come back now?' Longley asked as a greasy and ill-tempered pot boy slammed down their ales, slopping most of it on to the table.

Daniel looked around the crowded taproom. A haze of tobacco smoke hung in the air, tinged with smoke from the huge fire that burned at one end of the room. A fug of unwashed bodies and boiled cabbage completed the picture. He could not have been further from the dens of Fort Royal in Martinique, and it felt good.

He took a draught of the excellent ale and considered his reply.

‘As I said, Cromwell's dead. His son is fled to the Continent. The time is right for the King to return.' He paused. ‘For us all to return. How many years has it been since you were last in England?'