The Best of Men (37 page)

Laurence started at the name, then recalled what his father had told him: Earle was once chaplain at Wilton House.

“I have not exactly answered him yet myself,” Falkland murmured back. “But we shall speak of him another day.”

“And Mr. Beaumont, we must finish our discussion of Thucydides
when we have a chance,” the Prince said, grinning and stroking his lower lip with a finger.

“It would be my pleasure, Your Highness,” Laurence said, and bowed.

“Good day, my lord,” the Prince said to Falkland, who also bowed; and the Prince and Earle departed.

“Although Prince Charles is only twelve,” Falkland remarked to Laurence, taking a seat on the bench, “he is wise beyond his years.”

“That he is.”

“Pray sit, Mr. Beaumont.” Falkland cleared his throat. “I understand that you have been frustrated in your efforts to catch Mr. Rose, but that you assisted Colonel Hoare in interrogating a spy he had arrested.”

“My assistance wasn’t needed; the man was pretty much dead by the time I arrived,” Laurence said flatly.

“But he was alive long enough to reveal to you that he had some message for His Majesty about the peace negotiations.” Falkland stopped, regarding Laurence intently. “Colonel Hoare thinks that you did not tell him everything you got out of his prisoner.”

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll explain, my lord, though I must ask, for your safety and mine, that you keep what I say in complete confidence.”

“You ask much of me, when I have been given fair cause not to trust you.”

“In your position, my lord, it might be best to trust no one.” Laurence got up and scanned the open windows overlooking the herb garden. “May I request that we move?”

“Are you afraid that someone might be listening?”

“I’d prefer not to risk it.” He drew Falkland to the other end of the garden, where, after looking around once more, he said, “Hoare’s prisoner confessed to me that he was on a mission for the Earl of Pembroke.”

“Pembroke?” exclaimed Falkland, so sharply that an inchoate idea surfaced in Laurence’s mind, like a first, faint whiff of scent caught by hounds before the chase.

“Yes. It seems Pembroke was concerned that he might be accused of disloyalty to his own side, so he wanted to communicate in secret. The message was not for the King, but for someone else in His Majesty’s service – I presume an agent of Pembroke’s – Sir Bernard Radcliff.”

Falkland tugged at his moustache. “I don’t know of him.”

“By coincidence, I do. He’s married to the sister of a friend of mine. And he’s serving with Prince Rupert.”

“Was that why you lied to Colonel Hoare, to spare Radcliff from arrest?”

“Of course! The interrogation I had to take part in was botched thanks to Hoare’s excessive violence. If that man had been treated differently, we might have had far more out of him.” He noticed Falkland shiver, despite the warmth of the autumn sun. “Hoare is not just inept, my lord,” he went on. “He’s also strongly opposed to your desire for peace, as you must be aware. And I’ve heard a rumour that he may be opening and reading your private correspondence.”

Falkland gaped at him. “He could not be so treacherous!”

“He wouldn’t consider himself treacherous, my lord. He’s the sort of man who sees things in black and white. He’ll do whatever he believes is best for His Majesty’s cause, which in his view does
not
include a peaceful settlement. If this rumour has any truth to it, he may be hoping to undermine your efforts in that direction.”

“They may be undermined anyhow.” Falkland plucked a twig from a nearby bush, of fragrant lavender, and began to tear off the leaves methodically, one by one. “Yesterday the Earl of Essex sent an emissary to us, asking His Majesty to listen to another petition from Parliament. It contained the same old terms: that he return to Westminster, abandoning to their merited punishment all those counsellors who had
misled him into declaring war. His Majesty refused to listen to it on the grounds that he would receive nothing from a proclaimed traitor.” He shook his head, adding, “After our victory at Powick, Essex should have recognised that his petition hadn’t a chance.”

“Is peace still possible?”

“I must have faith that it is,” Falkland replied, though gloomily, as he tossed aside the naked twig. “And you?”

“I’m not altogether sanguine. But then I’ve been told I have a jaundiced view of human nature,” said Laurence, with a smile.

“You have seen at first hand what war can do.”

“Yes, well, as far as peace is concerned, the Earl of Pembroke evidently shares your faith,” Laurence remarked, in an offhand way. “It would be interesting to know if he confided any of this to Dr. Earle.”

Falkland jerked up his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Allow me to clarify, sir. I sat beside his lordship at a banquet in London last month. Afterwards he gave me a letter. He merely said that he desired to renew his former friendship with Earle.” Laurence nodded, as if accepting the explanation. “And all his lordship said to
me
was that he regretted our present discord, and wished it had not come to bloodshed.”

“Then what did you mean when you told Earle that you hadn’t exactly answered him?” Laurence could not help asking. He was aware that his question verged on impertinence, yet the scent that he had picked up earlier was growing more distinct.

“Mr. Beaumont, I am not obliged to answer you,” Falkland retorted.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Laurence said, pretending apology. “However, you might learn something of Pembroke’s intentions from Sir Bernard Radcliff.”

“Are you suggesting that
I
arrest him?”

“You could call him in for an audience –
without
alerting Colonel Hoare. And in future, my lord, I would urge you to be extremely vigilant not to say or write a word that Hoare could use against you.”

“What about the plot to regicide? He will expect you to work for him –”

“I must
appear
to be working for him. Please, my lord, don’t let him hinder me in my own investigations. I promise to tell you everything I find out, just as I’ve been frank with you today.”

“This rumour about my letters being opened – can you obtain some proof of it?”

“I could try,” Laurence said, reluctantly.

“I do admire your skill in negotiating these dark corners, Mr. Beaumont,” Falkland commented, in a rueful tone. “If only I had spent less time in my library, and more out in the world.”

“You’re out in the world now, my lord.”

“So I am,” said Falkland. “And what a world it is.”

Ingram was currying his horse after another day of drill exercises when he saw Beaumont gallop up on his graceful black stallion. “Here you are at last!” Ingram cried, as his friend dismounted.

“I meant to find you earlier but you know how things are,” Beaumont said, shrugging. “You look tired, Ingram.”

“I am. We’ve had new men come in who have no training yet, and some of our poor beasts contracted the founder and we had to shoot them. Radcliff went off this morning to buy more, though good mounts are scarce these days.”

“So you’re not quite prepared for a victorious march all the way to London?”

“I think we’ll have a fight with Essex before we get there. I heard from Tom that you’ve enlisted with Wilmot.”

“I’m in his Lifeguard,” Beaumont admitted, as if embarrassed.

“It pays to have such friends!” teased Ingram. “And I’m proud of you,” he added more seriously. “I know you weren’t keen to join up.”

“In the end I hadn’t much choice. How was your sister’s wedding?” Beaumont asked, to Ingram’s surprise, for he did not generally show an interest in such events.

“It passed off well, though I felt sorry for Kate that she had no honeymoon. Radcliff left the following day to visit his estate in Cambridgeshire. I didn’t see him again myself until the middle of September.”

“He was away from his troop for a whole month?”

“I know, it was a long time, but he’s desperate to keep his property from being confiscated by the rebels. They’ve imposed the most outrageous taxes on anyone in his neighbourhood who doesn’t support them.”

Beaumont hesitated, toying with the reins of his horse. “Ingram, did he ever express any doubts about where he’d stand in this war? After all, most of his county has gone the other way.”

How odd, Ingram thought, before answering: Radcliff had asked him much the same question about Beaumont. “That would make no difference to him! He came home ready to fight for his King, as he did bravely at Powick.”

“I thought he came home to get married,” Beaumont said, with a playful smile.

“That, too,” Ingram agreed, smiling also.

“How was Powick? For you, I mean.”

“I can’t say I enjoyed it. And ever since – you may think me foolish, but I’ve had a premonition that either Radcliff or I won’t come out of the war alive. I dream about it now and again.”

“That’s natural.”

“But – if it
were
to happen, would you go to Kate and tell her, so she doesn’t have to hear by some vile official letter? Promise, Beaumont,” Ingram insisted. “It’s important to me. She’s such a peculiar girl – not easy to like, in some ways. But we’re very close. And of course Radcliff is devoted to her.”

“I promise, but promise me in return that you won’t dwell on this. Sometimes the more a man fears dying in battle, the more it tends to happen. Not that I suggest you act the hero. I never did myself, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone I cared about.”

Ingram felt a deep pang of affection for his old friend. “I wish you were riding with us,” he said.

Beaumont squinted at him mischievously. “You’ve got Radcliff, haven’t you?”

“He doesn’t make me laugh, as you do.” Ingram nearly mentioned Radcliff’s persistent curiosity in Beaumont but held off. Beaumont would not appreciate it, he knew, and he so wanted the two men to be friends. “That’s a handsome pair of flintlocks you have there,” he remarked instead, pointing at the pistols in the holsters of Beaumont’s saddle. “I didn’t get a proper look at them on the night of our drunken foray. May I?” Beaumont pulled them out for him, and he weighed them in his palms, impressed by their lightness compared to his English wheellocks. They were indeed beautiful, of highly polished wood inlaid with a decorative silver pattern. “Where did you find them?”

“In Bremen, I think it was, though they’re French-made. I won them in a game of dice.”

“By luck or trickery?”

“Probably a bit of both.”

“You won’t see many of them around here.” As Ingram replaced them in the holsters, he noticed a sword tied to the saddle. “And how about this?” he said, fingering the ornate hilt. “Another game of dice?” Beaumont did not answer, but took it down for him. “A far cry from our broadswords, damned clumsy things,” Ingram said, as he unsheathed it admiringly. “Radcliff would be envious. When he was in the Low Countries this past spring, he lost a sword that must have been as fine as yours. He had it crafted to his design, even had his initials embossed on it.” Ingram made a few passes in the air with
Beaumont’s, sensing how comfortably the grip embraced his hand. “No, now I remember. It wasn’t lost. Some thief sneaked off with it while he was eating at a tavern.”

“At a tavern?” Beaumont repeated. “What bad luck. Was anything else stolen from him?”

“Yes, money, I believe, though it was the sword that upset him most. But then he wasn’t expecting a woman to rob him.”

“The thief was a woman?”

“That’s what he said.”

Beaumont’s gaze was riveted on his own sword, and as Ingram returned it to him, he inspected the pattern on the hilt as if seeing it for the first time. “It just occurred to me,” he said, looking up blithely. “I didn’t give Radcliff a wedding present. Please deliver this to him with my compliments.” He handed Ingram the sword, in its green scabbard. “And tell him I hope it makes up for the one he lost.”

“Beaumont, you can’t! You’ll need it soon, if we engage with Essex.”

“I’ll borrow another from Wilmot,” Beaumont muttered, as though to close the subject.

“Why don’t you wait, and give it to Radcliff yourself?”

Beaumont appeared to consider, then shook his head. Typical, Ingram thought, his friend had always hated being thanked. “But do me a favour,” Beaumont said. “I want to know the look on his face when he first sees it.”

“I can predict that,” Ingram told him. “He’ll be dumbstruck.”

On the evening before the King’s army moved out of Shrewsbury, Laurence called on Isabella again. When he entered her chamber she was lying dressed on the counterpane, propped up by cushions, her head bent over a thick volume. She smiled on seeing him and patted a spot on the bed beside her.

“In our difficult times,” she said, closing the volume with a dull thud, “I find it appropriate to study the Bible. But I am still mired in the earlier Books.”

“Violent stuff,” he commented, sitting down.

“Yes – I have reached the part where everyone has just been circumcised. All those males, I should say, who were not wandering about in the wilderness. I wonder why the custom is not still respected to this day amongst Christian people.”

“If you were a man, you might be relieved that it isn’t.”

“Ah!” Her eyes widened. “Have you personal knowledge of the subject?”

“No, though a couple of times I’ve seen evidence of it. Not all my friends have been Christian.”

“Then you have a broader acquaintance than I. Beaumont,” she went on more gravely, “I think you’ve been avoiding me. You haven’t come here all week.”

“Wilmot’s kept me busy at drill,” he said, which was true; he had not even found an opportunity to ask Ingram about the sword.

“You might have visited me in the evenings, instead of tippling with him downstairs.”

“You seem better,” he observed, to deflect the issue.

“I am. Mrs. Fulford has lavished me with attention. She is most distressed, by the way, that you gentlemen are leaving tomorrow. But I, too, shall be joining the dreary procession of camp followers. Digby says there are even more whores amongst them than wives, and of the wives, many will be turned into whores by the end of this campaign,” she concluded, with a hard little laugh.