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  “But you never liked him,” Laurence commented. “You called him an ambitious, foul-mouthed boor.”

  “Did I! Yet he is a patron of the arts, like his brother before him. He no doubt held a grudge against the King after his dismissal last summer from the office of Lord Chamberlain. Hoping to appease the radicals, and please Her Majesty who always detested him, the King had him replaced by the Earl of Essex. Essex sided with Parliament anyway, and so the King only ended by making an enemy out of his former ally.”

  “Too late for appeasement, as with the execution of Strafford. Still, I thought you said that Pembroke was one of the moderates in Parliament.”

  “He is, and as a figure in the Lords he can exert his influence in favour of a peaceful settlement.”

  “He’d have much to lose if the King won victory in battle, and he was caught on the wrong side.”

  “From what I hear, he claims he would not take up arms against His Majesty.”

  “Ah, so he’s merely hedging his bets.”

  “I trust principle still has some role in his actions,” Lord Beaumont said, discomfited by Laurence’s cynicism. “At any rate, let us return to John Earle. He has lately been appointed tutor to the young Prince Charles and may be too busy for games, but I should like to answer him nonetheless. What do you make of it?”

  Laurence inspected the passage again and asked for a quill. Lord Beaumont waited, watching him as he scribbled various numbers below the original characters, matched them with alphabetical letters, and at length produced groups of syllables, then words, and finally full lines. “It’s a substitution cipher with suppressed vowels,” he said, and showed his father the result.

  “Pray read it aloud for me, sir.” Laurence obliged him, after which he exclaimed triumphantly, “A passage from Herodotus – how excellent! You must explain how you unravelled the cipher. And could you write me a better one, to confound Dr. Earle?”

  “I think so,” said Laurence, wiping an inky forefinger and thumb on his breeches.

  “Laurence,” Lord Beaumont said, an idea surfacing in his mind, “you should not waste your gifts. Why not put them to some nobler purpose? You might work for Lord Falkland. The concerns of state security fall under his charge, as does the collection of intelligence. You could be useful to him.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Laurence asked, a tension audible in his voice that puzzled Lord Beaumont.

  “You could decipher messages for him and invent codes, as you are doing for me. I meant no more than that – perish the thought of you being a mole! That is not an occupation for gentlemen.”

  “It certainly isn’t,” Laurence murmured.

  Lord Beaumont felt a shade fearful, wondering what his son had done while abroad, and he realised that he did not actually want to find out. “Falkland would never use you so,” he said. “Yet to allay any concerns you might have, it can be made clear to him which duties you will accept, and which you will not.”

  “How would that be made clear?”

  “Through a letter of introduction. I could set out precisely –”

  “I haven’t depended on your name for some years,” Laurence interrupted. “But that’s not the point. Falkland can’t assure you that he’ll keep my nose clean, and it would be unfair to ask it of him.”

  “He is my good friend! He is also a man of honour, the best and most scrupulous of His Majesty’s advisors, which is why he was selected –”

  “That he may be. But there is such a thing as raison d’état.”

  “Yes, I admit –”

  “And it takes precedence over anyone’s scruples, in peace as in war – especially in war. And if war breaks out, I don’t think it will be a short engagement, nor will it be an affair of gentlemen. Though I could be wrong,” Laurence concluded sardonically. “The atrocities I witnessed abroad may have tainted my view of matters here.”

  Good God, thought Lord Beaumont, shaken by the force of his son’s reaction and deliberate choice of words. “Nevertheless,” he said, “we must not forget that our King did rule these seventeen years over a prosperous realm, the envy of many other crowned heads.”

  “And now the money is spent, and he’s had to call a Parliament that won’t vote him what he wants. And his Queen, who’s been run out of England by his own subjects, must pawn the crown jewels for arms so that he can afford to wage a war.”

  “We may still hope that cooler tempers will prevail. I have the greatest faith in Falkland and his allies. My son, you too could have some voice in all this. You have so much to offer – your swift intelligence, your academic learning, as well as your experience of conflict, which has taught you the value of peace. To act upon the stage of politics would befit a man of your rank.” A role I never played myself, Lord Beaumont mused regretfully. Then he hurried on, “I do not wish you to be compromised in any way, if you believe that is what might happen. Yet you should visit Falkland, if only to pay your respects.”

  There was a silence, during which he saw a kind of weary distaste in his son’s face, and afterwards a more calculating expression, which he did not altogether like.

  “All right,” Laurence said, “I’ll go. Though I don’t need a letter of introduction.”

  “Your mother will be proud of you.”

  “For the first time.”

  “Well, sir,” said Lord Beaumont, “there is a first time for everything.”

  VI.

  Upon leaving the library, Laurence went to his chamber, sat down on the edge of his bed, and put his head in his hands. He stayed motionless for some minutes, lost in contemplation, before searching inside his doublet and producing the folded letters, now grubby from much handling and far more inscrutable than Dr. Earle’s missive, proof even against his own gifts. He had not needed Khadija to tell him of their value, just as he had not needed her to comfort him with promises of a future love. And what tragedy could these flimsy sheets of paper prevent? They could not stop a war: the conflict between King and Parliament had been fomenting too long and had too many causes. But if they had a bearing on it, as he strongly suspected, the Secretary of State might take an interest in them. At the same time, he remembered Ingram’s reaction to a few mere details of his own past. He was one of many hundreds of returning veterans, and rumour had a way of spreading. If Lord Falkland were to hear anything discreditable about his activities abroad, so also might Lord Beaumont. And the truth would hurt him, Laurence knew.

  VII.

  Laurence had to admit that if not for Captain von Mansfeld, he would have abandoned his sanity altogether, stuck in that vile field hospital, still weak from his wound and with no hope of escape. On the bleak night that they first met, he was squatting to defecate in a corner of the yard when a group of officers rode in on glossy, well-fed horses. Behind them, moving more slowly, was a mule dragging a stretcher with a body tied up on it. The officers dismounted and led the mule and its awkward burden into a barn, now vacant, where prisoners of war had been kept. As he pulled up his breeches, Laurence considered stealing one of the horses, trying to calculate whether he had the strength to mount on his own, let alone ride any distance. Then he heard a voice cry out in a familiar tongue. Squelching through the thick mud towards the barn, he peered around the door.

  The officers were standing over the man on the stretcher, volleying questions at him in their native German. As the man panted out a reply, Laurence realised that he was a Spaniard, and the officers’ visible confusion suggested that they could not speak his tongue.

  Laurence stepped forward, so that they could see him in the glow of their single lantern. “I can translate for you,” he told them.

  They surveyed him derisively, and no wonder: he was half naked, unshaven and filthy, with a repulsive scab below his ribs.

  “Are you another Spanish prisoner of war?” asked one of them.

  “No, I’m an Englishman,” said Laurence, “and I was wounded fighting on your side.”

  “An Englishman?”
<
br />   “Hard to see what he is under all that dirt,” scoffed a second officer.

  “Well, whatever you are, help us quickly,” said the first. “This bastard won’t last long. Got caught in crossfire, and had both his legs blown off. But he’s a known courier and had a package of coded messages on him. We must find out what they are about, before he dies.”

  “I’ll do nothing until you tell me what it’s worth to you,” said Laurence, at which they hooted with laughter.

  “You’ve got balls, attempting to bargain with us,” exclaimed the first officer. He extended his hand, which Laurence was too shamed to sully by grasping in his own. “I am Captain Franz von Mansfeld, no kin, alas, to Wallenstein’s famous adversary, slain when I was a youth. And what is your name?” Laurence told him. “How little there is of you, Herr Beaumont, you’re skin and bone. Help us question the Spaniard and we’ll give you enough to buy a meal and put some clothes on your back.”

  “That’s not what I want,” Laurence said, struggling to hide his desperation. “I want you to get me out of this place.”

  “Fair enough, if you can do us good service,” the Captain said. “We haven’t a spare horse, but you are welcome to the mule. Come, to work.”

  Laurence knelt beside the pallet, his appetite aroused, despite himself, at the familiar bacon-like odour of singed flesh. The Spaniard’s legs had been shredded by cannon fire, and he would soon be dead. “Amigo,” Laurence began, “no tienes mucho más tiempo en este mundo.” The Spaniard started to writhe about, moaning that he would die unshriven. Laurence thought quickly, and whispered in his ear, “That’s why the Germans brought me to you. I am a priest, also a captive here. I’ve come to take your last confession.” Leaning in still closer, he hissed, “They can’t understand a word we’re saying. They have your package, which will go undelivered, but I can pass on what intelligence you give me. God willing, I intend to escape tonight.”

  “First save my soul,” the man responded, a faint suspicion in his eyes.

  After his years in the Spanish army, Laurence had witnessed so many priests officiating that he could rattle off a convincing version of the last sacrament. Making fast work of the man’s sins, he pronounced him absolved. Only then did the man begin to provide a more interesting confession, but eventually he wearied, and in a barely audible voice he murmured, “Gracías, padre, y que Díos te bendiga.” A spume of blood bubbled forth from his lips, and he was gone.

  The officers threw a sack over the body and strode out into the dull morning light, and Laurence followed. “Well, Herr Beaumont, did all that mumbling between the two of you bear any fruit?” von Mansfeld inquired impatiently.

  “I know who these were for.” Laurence pointed at the blood-splattered documents in von Mansfeld’s hand, and explained what he had found out.

  Von Mansfeld looked astonished. “How in the devil’s name did you persuade him to talk?”

  “In God’s name,” Laurence replied. “I told him I was a priest.”

  “Nice work, Herr Beaumont!” von Mansfeld congratulated him. “But that information is of little use to us if we cannot learn what is in these papers he was carrying.”

  “Let me see them,” Laurence begged. Von Mansfeld passed them over to him, and he scanned the lines of densely packed numbers. “I know this cipher,” he said, feigning confidence. “I can break it. Give me a chance and I’ll show you.”

  The Captain glanced at his companions, who appeared dubious, then shrugged and nodded. “Very well, sir, we shall give you your chance.”

  And so, after a journey of some twenty miles, Laurence was found quarters, nourishing food, hot water to wash, and clean clothes. By the next evening, he managed to complete his task for von Mansfeld, who was duly impressed. His rescue could not have been better timed. He heard subsequently that the hospital was razed to the ground by a mob of villagers furious at the depredations of the mercenary troops. Any wounded who had not perished in the flames were hacked to death.

  Other work arrived for him while he recovered his full health, for von Mansfeld discovered that Herr Beaumont had an unusual aptitude with codes and ciphers. And since the prospect of facing gunfire again filled Laurence with the utmost panic, he did not object when, later on, some new duties were added to his conditions of employment. He travelled regularly throughout the Low Countries, the German states, and even into France to deliver messages. He frequented taverns and alehouses listening for gossip, and made tongues wag with alcohol. He bribed, he told lies, and he bedded women to learn their husbands’ secrets. He hung about alleys tracking down and sometimes dispatching enemy spies. More reluctantly, he assisted in the interrogation of prisoners, after which he suffered from nightmares and bouts of profound self-loathing that he tried in vain to banish with drink. He was good at his work, using finesse rather than torture to extract the truth. Over time, however, those around him began to gossip that he treated his subjects gently because he was working under cover for the Hapsburg Emperor, and that he had only pretended to turn coat at the siege of Breda. The slander spread, and he was shunned and vilified. He would have been in more serious danger had not von Mansfeld come yet again to the rescue, offering him a place in his troop of horse.

  VIII.

  In his quarters at Leicester, Lord Falkland was sorting through his correspondence in preparation for a meeting of Council. “Yet another begging letter, Stephens,” he complained to his servant.

  “From whom, my lord?” Stephens asked.

  “A fellow of my acquaintance named Charles Danvers, likeable enough but dissolute in his habits. No surprise that he says he has money troubles. He wants some kind of employment. He has a great ear for gossip, he tells me. What a recommendation!”

  “Colonel Hoare is always interested in gossip, my lord.”

  Falkland sighed. “Whenever I hear that man’s name, I am reminded of those duties necessitated by my office that I would rather not contemplate.”

  “Every Secretary of State must have his spymaster. And he is a most capable manager of your agents.”

  “That may be, but he takes too much pleasure in extorting confessions from anyone he has occasion to arrest.”

  “He’s a military man, my lord,” Stephens observed, “and hence accustomed to the use of force where no other means will suffice.”

  “So he is.” And I know he frowns upon my scant experience in that regard, Falkland nearly added. But if it came to war here, all might soon be remedied, he thought sorrowfully. He looked down again at the note, penned in an elegant hand with bold flourishes. Danvers might be too unreliable for clandestine work, though Hoare could be the judge of that. They were in need of new agents, since some of their valued men had chosen to side with Parliament.

  “My lord, if you please.” Stephens indicated the tray waiting by the fire. “Her ladyship would be concerned if you did not eat.”

  “You are right, Stephens,” agreed Falkland, with a smile. “Dear Lettice would give me a thorough scolding. Burn these.” He passed a sheaf of letters to Stephens, who obediently consigned them to the flames; their wax seals gave out spitting sounds, as if protesting their own destruction. “I do not look forward to tonight,” Falkland went on, more to himself than to his servant, as he sat down to his food. “There seem to be few good tidings for His Majesty since he came to the north. The local gentry welcome him with declarations of loyalty, but they are hanging back from any more commitment than mere words. And the surrender of Hull to Parliament was a blow. Yet another port lost. With some diplomacy, it could have been avoided.”

  Stephens coughed dryly as he filled Falkland’s glass, suggesting to Falkland that he had an opinion to express. “With all respect, my lord,” he said, “you cannot deny that His Majesty had cause to be affronted by the demands of Parliament’s Commissioners at Hull. They sought to bargain with their sovereign in exchange for delivering up to him one of his own cities.”

  “They asked him to return in peace to London and negotiat
e with them. It was not such an outrageous request.” Falkland took a small sip of wine to chase down a morsel of roast fowl and wiped his mouth on the edge of the tablecloth. “I had better set out, Stephens. It would not do for me to be late.”

  With a disapproving glance at the platter that Falkland had barely touched, Stephens went to fetch their cloaks and hats, and accompanied his master over the short distance to the royal apartments.

  In the end Falkland was early. He found His Majesty alone with Lord Digby. This immediately set Falkland’s nerves on edge: if he had to pick a single man he could hold responsible for the widening chasm between King and Parliament it would be George Digby, who seemed to change political colour as readily as a chameleon. Over the past year Falkland had been noting apprehensively the ease with which Digby had managed to insinuate himself more and more into the King’s favour.

  “As I said at the g-gates of Hull,” the King was remarking in his soft Scottish accent, punctuated with a mild stammer, “let all the world now judge who b-began this war.”

  “Your Majesty,” Digby said, “no one could honestly accuse you of sparing any effort to prevent armed conflict. You have been provoked beyond measure, and yet still you hold out the olive branch to your unworthy subjects.” He broke off on seeing Falkland, who bowed to them both. “How are you, Lucius?” Digby cried, addressing Falkland as ever by his Christian name. Such unusual familiarity irked Falkland, even though he guessed this was Digby’s intention.

  “I am in good health, thank you, my lord,” he said, feeling awkward beside Digby’s suave and graceful presence. “And I am gratified to learn that the olive branch remains on offer, Your Majesty,” he continued, which the King acknowledged with a benign smile.

  “I wonder what Prince Rupert will think of that when he arrives,” Digby said, playing with one of his blond lovelocks.