Page 48 of By the Sword
Jonathan nodded and without bothering to undress, he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
***
Charles Stuart, erstwhile King of England and newly crowned King of Scotland, stood by a window, staring out at the interminable drizzle of the bleak Scottish autumn. He did not even bother to look around as Giles and Jonathan entered the room.
Lord Wilmot, the King’s friend and adviser, stood by the table with a couple of others Jonathan recognised, poring over a map. In a chair by the fireplace, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, played Patience with a stained and battered pack of cards, his handsome face petulant with boredom.
He looked up and, seeing Jonathan, a malicious smile flickered across his lips. ‘Well, well, look who it is. Thornton. Returned from the dead, it would seem to look at you.’
Jonathan swept the Duke a bow more notable in its contempt than respect.
‘My Lord Buckingham, I trust you are well?’
The King turned on his heel to face the room, a smile breaking the swarthy face when he saw Jonathan.
‘Sir Jonathan. We truly thought you dead or, as George has suggested more than once’– he gave Buckingham a significant look–’deserted. But I can see from your face that it is not either. I’m pleased to have you by my side again.’
Jonathan bowed low over the King’s proffered hand. ‘Your Majesty, it is my pleasure to be here and to see you once more on your own soil.’
The King sighed deeply. ‘Ah, hardly “my soil” yet. Do you have dispatches for me?’
Jonathan handed the stained documents over, a flush of embarrassment rising to his face as the King raised an eyebrow as he turned the documents over.
‘Am I right in assuming that you encountered some difficulty in bringing these to me?’
‘I had the great misfortune to be recognised, Your Majesty. Regrettably a pistol ball in the shoulder slowed me down.’
‘As I imagine it would. That explains your absence. I trust that you are recovered? Do you wish Dr Fraser to see to your shoulder?’
Jonathan shook his head. ‘It has been well tended. Time and rest will set it fully to rights.’
‘Well you should have ample amounts of both,’ the King remarked, the tone of his voice bitter. ‘Has Longley told you what has befallen us since I landed?’
Jonathan nodded and said slowly. ‘He’s apprised me of how things have gone with you and the Scots.’
The King sat down heavily, his hands hanging between his knees, his shoulders slumped. He was barely twenty but in that moment looked like a man twice his age.
He took a deep breath and gazed around the gloomy room. ‘They promised me an army. They promised to make me King. What they didn’t tell me was what it would cost me.’
Jonathan said nothing. The King needed to talk. He needed a friendly shoulder on which to lay his troubles. Charles rose, walked over to the fire and kicked a log back into place. It sputtered angrily, shooting a tongue of bright red flame up the chimney.
‘Well, I paid the price they asked. I have sworn their Solemn League and Covenant. I have publicly renounced all that I believe in, everything my father died for.’ He turned to look at Jonathan, his eyes hot with anger and perhaps even unshed tears. ‘Even that was not enough. They have now demanded I renounce my parents.’
Jonathan shook his head in disbelief. ‘And the army they promised?’
Wilmot gave a snort of laughter. ‘Oh they provided an army but only after the bloody Covenanters had purged it of its best commanders.’
Jonathan turned to look at Wilmot.
‘General Leslie?’
‘Leslie survived the purge, but he will have to do the best with what he has got. Don’t hope for a command, Thornton. If they won’t have their own, they certainly do not want Englishmen.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We sit here, we listen to sermons, we drink too much and when the Scots aren’t looking, we whore too much.’ GeorgeVilliers held up his glass, swilling the wine as he did so. ‘And we play cards, don’t we, Longley?’
Giles shrugged, and Lord Wilmot cast the Duke a look of pure dislike.
