'No, it isn't simple.' Audley recognised the source of her doubt: it was the knowledge that there on the left, but for the grace of God, went Frances herself, in the ranks of Charlie Ratcliffe's regiment. 'But it isn't improper either. If Ratcliffe had played straight to get his gold, we wouldn't touch him.
But he didn't play straight, he played dirty. He had another human being killed—' he had to hold her here '—like a rabbit.'
Kill it, Audley—go on, man—kill it!
'Yes—' Mitchell started to speak, but caught Audley's eye just in time. As though to stop up his mouth he started to munch the parsley which Mistress Henrietta had given him.
'Like a rabbit, Frances,' Audley repeated. 'And he didn't even have the guts to do his own killing. He hired someone.'
He could feel her doubt weakening. In the end it was always a matter of trust and now she wanted to trust him, not knowing that he had won her by summoning up that old, dark memory of the harvest field.
She stared at him. 'You're sure?'
No.
dummy5
But that trust was a two-way thing, like the feudal bond he had almost accepted in the Minister's car.
'Yes.'
No more doubt: it was gone like a shadow in the sunlight.
Frances would serve now, consenting to whatever had to be done.
'So what next?' asked Mitchell through the parsley. 'You really want me to lean on John Lumley?'
'I don't want you to do anything, either of you. Keep an eye open for them, but don't do anything. Just fight your battle today the way it's scripted. You're my Tenth Legion.'
'More like Fifth Column. So what are we being reserved for, my lord?'
'The storming of Standingham Castle next Saturday.'
Mitchell's eyes lit up. 'Of course! Forgive me for being so dim, David—I'd got my parts mixed up.'
'Your what?'
Mitchell laughed. 'I was still doing my
To horse, you gallant princes! Straight to horse!'
'Don't be a pain, Paul,' said Frances.
'You can't talk, Frances dear. You've been doing it far worse dummy5
than me—
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make ...'
What a young snake the boy was, thought Audley ruefully.
'But now you know our cause is just, our quarrel honourable, you can safely shift from Agincourt to Elsinore, my lady.'
Mitchell was enjoying himself. 'Because we're going to be Hamlet's Players in
the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
'Bravo and good on you, David. We'll pronounce our lines trippingly, I promise you. Is there anything else you want?'
Yes, just one thing so far as Mitchell was concerned, thought Audley fervently. But he would have to settle for something less drastic.
'Yes, there is one thing,' he said heavily.
'Be my guest.'
'I'd like to know why the hell you're eating parsley.'
But that only stopped Mitchell for a fraction of a second.
'Mistress Henrietta's gift? But of course—I asked her for it.'
dummy5
Mitchell pointed to the corner of the playroom, to a small table laden with Air Vice-Marshal Rushworth's forgotten sandwiches and beer bottles. 'The Royalist cavalry aren't allowed to drink today—a shocking anachronism, because they were pie-eyed back in '44. But I've had a beer and I can't afford to be dismissed the service until after I've stormed Standingham next week. Didn't your father ever tell you that parsley takes away the smell of booze, David?'
9
COLONEL BUTLER was standing in a great bow window staring down at the bridge. In his hand he had a large cut-glass tumbler of heavily-watered whisky; Audley knew it was whisky, because Butler hated sherry and avoided beer, which put too much of a strain on his bladder; and he knew it was heavily watered, because Butler was on duty, and if there was a god to whom Butler knelt (other than the one who protected his three small daughters) it would be Mithras, the soldier's god of Duty.
The same sun which had bathed Paul Mitchell and Frances Fitzgibbon with seventeenth-century magic, the high midday sun, turned Butler's fiery red hair to a rich gold, but even in the sunlight Audley could see that there was
