Page 2 of Exile's Return
‘What is to become of the children?’
Turner glanced at Henry and Elizabeth with cold, dispassionate eyes.
‘You will be summoned to Whitehall when your petition has been considered by the Committee. In the meantime, you are to remain here. You are not to leave London.’
‘I can only pray that will not be too long,’ Agnes said, thinking of her empty purse. ‘The children should be returned to their home as soon as possible.’
Ignoring her, Turner turned to his men. ‘We have the traitor’s personal possessions. Where do you want us to put them?’
Agnes’s resolve buckled at the sight of the familiar metal-bound box that James had taken with him into the Tower. Only her need to stay calm for the children steadied her.
‘Well?’ Turner demanded.
She waved vaguely at a dark corner of the inn room. ‘Over there. Tell me…was it…quick?’’
The man considered her for a moment. ‘I was not present, but the Colonel assures me he died bravely and in the love of God, madam.’
Of course, Tobias would have been there.
Agnes straightened and replied in an icy tone, ‘That is of no comfort.’
Turner’s gaze met hers and for a brief moment some emotion, anger or amusement, she could not tell, flashed in his eyes.
He inclined his head and half turned for the door. ‘I reiterate, you are not to leave London, Mistress Fletcher.’
‘Am I under arrest?’ Agnes raised her chin, cursing her lack of inches.
The man shook his head. ‘No, but we will know if you try to leave and it will do your cause no favours.’
Agnes straightened. She could not imagine any other outcome other than safe return home to Charvaley. She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘And where would we go, Captain Turner? I have no money and no friends who would take us in.’
Not if they did not wish to incur the wrath of the children’s only other living relative, Colonel Tobias Ashby. Tobias had been high in favour under Cromwell. Of course, since the Lord Protector’s death, the world had shifted on its axis, and she considered the betrayal of his cousin may have been Tobias’s attempt to keep in favour with the new regime.
‘I will pray to God and put my trust in this Committee. I would remind you that I am the children’s aunt and closer by blood than the Colonel,’ she continued.
Turner regarded her without expression. He had no interest in hearing her plead her case; his loyalty lay entirely with Tobias.
He inclined his head. ‘You will receive word when you are to appear before the Committee. Good day to you, madam.’ He jerked his head at his soldiers. ‘Come.’
The door slammed closed behind them and Agnes’s resolve failed. She sank to her knees, burying her face in her hands as she wept. This time the arms of the two children circled her, as they added their tears to hers.
Chapter 2
Bruges, 28 October 1659
Daniel Lovell stood at a window in the makeshift audience room, looking down at the canal below, along which a barge laden with wool, probably from England, made its leisurely way. A steady drizzle of rain ran down the lead panes of the windows, adding a general bleakness to the morning.
No one paid him any heed. Behind him, the courtiers, dressed in their finery, jabbered like parrots. A parody of a king’s court, Daniel thought. Up close the frayed cuffs and patched linen of those same courtiers bore testament to the reality of life lived in the shadow of an exiled king.
When his ship, the privateerL’Archange,had docked in Le Havre he could have taken ship for England, but he had come to Charles’s court in Bruges for one reason only. The person he sought would not be found in England, not in the tumbled ruins of Eveleigh Priory. If his brother, Kit, were still alive, he would be here with the King. If not, at least here he could find someone who could tell him where Kit—or his grave—could be found.
Below him, the barge passed, and his thoughts were interrupted by the crash of a door opening. A sonorous voice announced the arrival of His Majesty. Daniel turned to face his King, sweeping, like the others, into a deep bow.
At the age of eighteen Daniel Lovell had gone into battle beside this man; both carried with them dreams of honour and glory and the rightful avenging of the deaths—no, murders—of their fathers.
At the end of that bloody day at Worcester, the King had become a fugitive in his own land and Daniel, nursing a wound to his right arm, had huddled against the tomb of King John in the great Cathedral of Worcester, a prisoner like the hundreds of others who had survived the battle. With the cold stone pressed against his face, he had hoped that no one would notice the shaming tears of humiliation and fear.
His idea of vengeance at the age of eighteen had been ill-conceived and vague. The naive boy who had donned his father’s armour and taken up his sword had died that day as surely as if a sword had pierced his heart. Eight years of exile had honed his bitterness like a blade and now he carried it on his shoulders like a carrion bird, picking at the shreds of his memory.
