Traitor's Field Read Online Free PDF Page B

having a tendency to exacerbate his blush and his hesitancy of speech. His Majesty did not like to be in any distress of mind before or during his intimate proceedings, believing this disruptive to the good rhythms of the body and thus detrimental to the health.
    So it has to be now, then
. Seymour, still on one knee, held his head bowed for an extra moment. Still on his knees, he shuffled backwards a pace and made an exaggerated show of checking the rearrangement of the King’s garments. Inconceivable that His Majesty could be allowed to seem in the slightest way foolish. Then he stood and stepped back. 
    He held out a bowl of warmed water, and the King carefully washed his hands, the small pale fingers exploring each other slowly and reflectively in a rare moment away from the world.
Imprisoned by the father; opposed the son; rejoined him in time for his defeat and incarceration.
    He held out a towel, and the King carefully dried his hands.
The wrong side on every occasion, and fate has decreed that I, that have scorned this family over two generations, shall at the last be closer to Charles Stuart than any man living, and tell the hours of his misfortunes.
    He held out a smaller bowl, of rose water, and the King carefully dabbled his fingers in it, each hand in turn and each tip in turn flickering in and out of the liquid. The King’s head is bowed still, watching his own fingers.
    He held out a new towel, and the King carefully touched his fingers on it. The King likes to believe that he is alone, even when he is not.
    ‘Your Majesty.’ The King looked up. The King should speak first. The King knows that Seymour would only intrude in this way if he needed to impart news privately.
    The wide sad eyes gazed at Seymour. ‘Your Majesty, I regret that we have ill tidings from the north.’

    From an inn in Leeds, the Sign of the Boar, riders went south and north and east to the sea with messages. The messages were addressed to four different men in four different cities: to John Fenniman, of London; to Jacob Hoy, of Edinburgh; to Pierre Mazzini, of Paris; and to Pieter de Gucht of Amsterdam.
    Shay had hesitated over London. It seemed unlikely that he would get a reply from London. But one never knew.
    The message was the same in each case. The writer, Francis Padget, was interested in acquiring a copy of the
Codex Walther
. A friend of his, Mortimer Shay, had once recommended the recipient as a man who might be able to assist him in such matters. If the recipient was able to oblige him, he should reply to Francis Padget at the same address in Leeds.
    Francis Padget did not exist. John Fenniman, Jacob Hoy, Pierre Mazzini and Pieter de Gucht did not exist either. But there were other men in those four cities who, if they still lived, and if the circumstances allowed, would be alert for messages addressed to those names, and would be able to provide proofs of identity sufficient to receive the messages. Men who would know the real and dramatic meaning of a reference to the
Codex
.
    Mortimer Shay did exist, and he would be waiting for a reply.

    In the first pale whisper of dawn, a short, stout man kneels in a copse of trees near the town of Colchester. Again he looks all around him. Again he empties his mind and concentrates all attention in his ears.
    The cold is a hollow ache through his body, scalding his cheeks and his hands. The promise of warmth is magnified by the parallel promise of safety. The longbow in his left hand he can explain – a rustic eccentricity – don’t a man deserve a rabbit if he can get it, in these bad times? The arrow in his right hand will get him hanged.
    Ahead, vague in the grass, he can see Parliamentarian sentries wrapped in dew-covered cloaks and drowsy. Beyond them, two hundred yards off, loom the walls of Colchester. His breaths come fast and short – fierce puffs of steam in the morning.
    An arrow from a longbow in even moderately competent hands will cover those two hundred yards and