Traitor's Field by Robert Wilton Page A
Authors: Robert Wilton
inn outside Derby. He would have preparations to manage in the town during the next days, and further preparations once he reached Nottingham.
He was the only man staying in the inn – indeed, the only man to step through the door for the hours he was there – and he spent what remained of the evening sitting in silence with a jug of wine, trying to keep his head turned to judgement and not memory.
Warm and desperate for life, Lady Sarah Saville had offered Langdale to him as a quest, and as amusement for his interest.
And what if it serves the King’s interest as well?
He needed to understand what Astbury had done with the Comptrollerate-General – principally the book. He needed to understand what had preyed on Astbury’s mind in those last days: Pontefract, and the field at Preston. Sir Marmaduke Langdale was a rare link to that.
Besides, even an empty exploit against the new regime would serve a purpose.
The complacency of these Parliament men might stand a little shaking.
Three men followed Shay on his meandering journey, always a mile or two behind, and he did not see them.
Until its final deliberate destruction, the old Nottingham Castle rose like a vast and solitary yellow tooth from the uneven gum of the surrounding landscape.
The first Richard, back from crusade wild and strange, with grim leather-skinned companions and new engines of war, had laid siege to the castle as part of his campaign to recapture his kingdom from the partisans of his brother. The third Edward had come of age here, seizing his usurper stepfather in a night-time ambush with just a handful of friends and a subconscious inheritance of right. The centuries and the sieges had left it broken and rotten, a relic of an older society with crumbling walls and fallen roofs and Roundhead soldiers trying to keep it defensible and warm.
On a morning in October in 1648, a man appeared in the heart of the castle, a shadow suddenly on the yellow-grey stone in a forgotten corridor. He sensed his way through the castle, feeling his way by memory, adjusting to the rhythms of fallen masonry and half-heard sentries’ footsteps.
He was prepared for violence: a sentry or two might need to be subdued or killed, and such men could easily disappear unnoticed for an hour or for ever in the shambling ruined maze. But it was not necessary. An hour of observation showed that, through indifference or calculated routine, the room now being used as a cell was not closely guarded. The man slipped through the cold tunnels unobtrusive but assured, the scuff of his boots echoing weird in unknown staircases and holes in the roof. He pressed close to the cell door.
Sir Marmaduke Langdale: the hair was grey now, the heavy eyes sagging, but still the great beak of a nose thrust itself proud and ludicrous into the world’s business. Age had given it a certain nobility. On the young Langdale, obsessed with discipline and supply as they marched to the Rhine, it had been merely comic.
But that was nigh thirty years ago
. He watched the gaunt grim face a second more, framed in the iron-crossed window of the cell door. Now a hero two or three times over, in a losing cause.
A furtive delicate click from the lock; the cell door squawked briefly as it opened, and again as it closed. The narrow face lifted instinctively, soured at the interruption, and then caught in surprise as it recognized the intruder.
Langdale took a great breath, and then swallowed it. ‘Shay!’ he whispered, hoarse. Sitting high in a wooden chair by the window, he slumped back into it.
‘Afternoon, Langdale.’
He spoke at normal volume, and the General set his tone accordingly. ‘I tolerate a certain indignity in my current circumstances, Shay, but I absolutely refuse to share my confinement with you.’
‘They haven’t caught me, yet. I wandered in on my own account.’
This didn’t seem to surprise Langdale. ‘Last we heard you were in Holland. I’d thought you long
He was the only man staying in the inn – indeed, the only man to step through the door for the hours he was there – and he spent what remained of the evening sitting in silence with a jug of wine, trying to keep his head turned to judgement and not memory.
Warm and desperate for life, Lady Sarah Saville had offered Langdale to him as a quest, and as amusement for his interest.
And what if it serves the King’s interest as well?
He needed to understand what Astbury had done with the Comptrollerate-General – principally the book. He needed to understand what had preyed on Astbury’s mind in those last days: Pontefract, and the field at Preston. Sir Marmaduke Langdale was a rare link to that.
Besides, even an empty exploit against the new regime would serve a purpose.
The complacency of these Parliament men might stand a little shaking.
Three men followed Shay on his meandering journey, always a mile or two behind, and he did not see them.
Until its final deliberate destruction, the old Nottingham Castle rose like a vast and solitary yellow tooth from the uneven gum of the surrounding landscape.
The first Richard, back from crusade wild and strange, with grim leather-skinned companions and new engines of war, had laid siege to the castle as part of his campaign to recapture his kingdom from the partisans of his brother. The third Edward had come of age here, seizing his usurper stepfather in a night-time ambush with just a handful of friends and a subconscious inheritance of right. The centuries and the sieges had left it broken and rotten, a relic of an older society with crumbling walls and fallen roofs and Roundhead soldiers trying to keep it defensible and warm.
On a morning in October in 1648, a man appeared in the heart of the castle, a shadow suddenly on the yellow-grey stone in a forgotten corridor. He sensed his way through the castle, feeling his way by memory, adjusting to the rhythms of fallen masonry and half-heard sentries’ footsteps.
He was prepared for violence: a sentry or two might need to be subdued or killed, and such men could easily disappear unnoticed for an hour or for ever in the shambling ruined maze. But it was not necessary. An hour of observation showed that, through indifference or calculated routine, the room now being used as a cell was not closely guarded. The man slipped through the cold tunnels unobtrusive but assured, the scuff of his boots echoing weird in unknown staircases and holes in the roof. He pressed close to the cell door.
Sir Marmaduke Langdale: the hair was grey now, the heavy eyes sagging, but still the great beak of a nose thrust itself proud and ludicrous into the world’s business. Age had given it a certain nobility. On the young Langdale, obsessed with discipline and supply as they marched to the Rhine, it had been merely comic.
But that was nigh thirty years ago
. He watched the gaunt grim face a second more, framed in the iron-crossed window of the cell door. Now a hero two or three times over, in a losing cause.
A furtive delicate click from the lock; the cell door squawked briefly as it opened, and again as it closed. The narrow face lifted instinctively, soured at the interruption, and then caught in surprise as it recognized the intruder.
Langdale took a great breath, and then swallowed it. ‘Shay!’ he whispered, hoarse. Sitting high in a wooden chair by the window, he slumped back into it.
‘Afternoon, Langdale.’
He spoke at normal volume, and the General set his tone accordingly. ‘I tolerate a certain indignity in my current circumstances, Shay, but I absolutely refuse to share my confinement with you.’
‘They haven’t caught me, yet. I wandered in on my own account.’
This didn’t seem to surprise Langdale. ‘Last we heard you were in Holland. I’d thought you long