War Game

Mitchell sat astride a huge old Victorian rocking-horse and Frances knelt before a marvellous Victorian dolls' house. They were changed —even their expressions were different: they stared at him with the heavy-lidded calm of Van Dyck's portraits—

but they had changed from strangers into themselves as they really ought to have been.

Panache for Mitchell.

Purity for Frances.

Mitchell rose effortlessly from the rocking-horse, checking its movement with a long-fingered hand. It was the first time Audley had ever noticed how long those fingers were.

'Steady there. Champion—steady,' Mitchell commanded.

'Well, my lord, how do you like us?'

Before Audley could reply Mitchell swept off the broad-dummy5

brimmed hat with an exaggerated figure-of-eight movement, ending with its plume brushing the floor as he completed the elaborate ceremony of a seventeenth-century bow.

'Where be thy manners, my lady?' he hissed out of the corner of his mouth at Frances. 'Show the Lord General proper respect, I pray you.'

Well— fiddlesticks would be her quick answer to that, thought Audley. There was no nonsense about Frances Fitzgibbon.

Frances looked at him doubtfully for one fraction of a second only, then lowered her eyes modestly and sank into a deep curtsey, her black skirts billowing up around her.

'My lord—forgive me. I bid you welcome.'

So ... but if they were playing games, damn it—and they would never know how unsettling their games were after that eerie first impression—then it would be as well for him not to lose his temper straight off.

'Thou hast my forgiveness, child.' He bowed to her.

Mitchell straightened up, squinting at him in the sunlight. 'I pray you, my lord, to be not short with us. We do but—ah —

practise those strange usages which thy command hath thrust upon us. By our words thou must needs know the problems that beset us in this enterprise.'

'Aye.' Frances had the grace to blush, and that was at least something to hold on to. 'We, being persuaded in the love of Christ that thou hast ordered us rightly, have purposed to the dummy5

utmost to serve you in our places and our callings. But thou needest not reply to us in like manner.'

' 'To serve thee',' corrected Mitchell. 'You is wrong.'

'But they do say you.'

'Only in the plural, at least colloquially.' Mitchell shook his head emphatically. 'But that bit about 'the love of Christ' was good—absolutely right for you—thee.' He turned to Audley.

'The bloody trouble is, I don't know how to swear any more.

I just don't know how to say 'Fuck off ' in these clothes—I'm darn sure they said it somehow, and I've already wanted to say it a couple of times. But I'm a trooper—and I don't know how to swear like a trooper.'

'They weren't singing like seventeenth-century troopers when I last heard them,' said Audley. 'It was strictly twentieth-century stuff, ex-British Army.'

Mitchell nodded agreement. 'Ah—they make an exception with the songs. It's the spirit that counts there, not the words.'

'Same with us,' said Frances. 'It's Hymns Ancient and Modern.'

'And political,' said Audley.

'That's right—' she gave him a quick glance '—but you know about that?'

'Not nearly enough yet. So tell me more.' What had ever made him think she looked sexy? As a puritan maiden she was not every man's mistress, but every man's daughter.

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'Well, I've only had one evening of it. As far as I can see there are three regiments to the far left—the others call them 'the Angry Brigade'—but I haven't found anyone making bombs yet. It's just talk.'

'What sort of talk?'

'Oh, the usual stuff, but all in seventeenth-century language.' Frances fished in a small leather bag, producing a mini-recorder. 'I went to a camp-fire service last night, down by the river—on our side of it. And there was one chap sounding off—listen—' She held the recorder to Audley's ear, clicking the button with her thumb as she did so.

Crackle— crackle— crackle—

'I couldn't get as close as I'd have liked—'

'Yes, I tell you all, good people ... the liberties of this land have been lost since the coming in of William the Conqueror . . . and that, ever since, the People of God have lived under tyranny and oppression worse than that of our forefathers under the Egyptians. But now the time of deliverance is at hand; God will bring His people out of this slavery, and restore them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of the earth ...'

Crackle—crackle—crackle—

The voice was high and nasal—an American voice. ... A New England voice.