Traitor's Field by Robert Wilton

You mean – after Preston?’
    Hissed excitement still: ‘We sheltered him for a night.’
    He smiled. ‘You’re a good woman, Sarah.’ It was genuine affection, and she could tell. ‘Did he talk about Astbury?’
    ‘Only about his probably being dead. But he mentioned Pontefract, too, and so I mentioned Astbury.’
    ‘Langdale was fretting about Pontefract as well?’
    ‘He was trying to get there, I think. Something about “his men”.’
    Shay nodded. ‘Those who fought with him during the main years of the war. Many are now besieged at Pontefract. He went in that direction when he left here?’
    ‘I don’t know. They – they captured him. . . I suppose not long after.’ She said it tentatively, not sure whether he knew.
    ‘Mm. I’d heard rumour.’
    ‘He’s in Nottingham Castle.’
    ‘Is he, indeed?’
    ‘It’s—’
    ‘I know where Nottingham is.’ He smiled to take the edge off his asperity. ‘You’re well-informed, Sarah.’
    She was suddenly serious. ‘These are my people. This is my world.’ There was almost hurt there, too. ‘You will allow me not to forget it, at least.’ 
    He nodded, sincere.
Is it war or is it just age, this insistent accounting of the mementoes of the past?
    ‘It’s wrong. It’s wrong for a man – a good man, and he’s not young – to be locked up like that. Weeks now, I think.’
    ‘Knowing Langdale, he’ll have made their lives more miserable than they have his.’
    But suddenly her fingers were on his arm again. ‘You could do something! You could get him out!’ Her eyes and mouth were wide in the dream. ‘Oh, do it!’ It was desperation, an empty clutching at a vision of a more heroic past, more romantic. ‘Save him, Mortimer.’
    There was movement near them: the three young men were watching them more openly, and Shay wondered how much their voices had carried. Sarah Saville had followed his glance, and now looked back up at him with more composure, a little more height.
    ‘I was never a fair woman, Mortimer, but I was always true.’ She said it with dignity, and only a little embarrassed smile at the end marred the effect. ‘I charge you with this; say it’s a quest. If you have no greater, make this man your interest. Prove that something good and daring may still be done here.’
    His eyes had been elsewhere, calculating. It was ridiculous, of course. Now he turned to look her full and blatant in the face, and the eyes were big and hard, and then they narrowed in intent, something animal. Her eyes widened in reaction, a faint flush of excitement and alarm.
    Sir Mortimer Shay, roaming once more the houses and hearts of England.

    ‘Astbury died at Preston. Shay has his place.’
    ‘How came Shay by the office? By no pleasant means, I am sure. Was he fighting for Cromwell that day? He is uncontrollable.’
    ‘He is unstoppable. He held the office briefly before.’
    ‘He was removed from the office, and with high good reason.’
    ‘We may add persistence to his list of qualities.’
    ‘I am right glad to be out of England.’ 

    Sir,
    Cromwell, Fairfax and St John must work continuously to keep the scales in balance. For whereas on the one hand they threaten the Scots with the Army should they fail to surrender Berwick and Carlisle, so on the other hand that same Army is in a ferment and may not fully be relied upon. September is now spoken of as a month of mutiny. The so-called Levellers have petitioned Parliament again for their radical claims, and the regiments in the north – those same who would be most necessary should the Scots seek battle again – have been loud in their support. The Army that Cromwell unleashed in this land threatens to escape his control quite, and those renewed rumours seem most credible, which do say that he himself contrived to remove the King from Army control last winter for fear of some outrage by the Agitators and Levellers in the ranks.
    Faithfully, S. V.
    [SS C/S/48/17]

    Shay spent a night in an