Gideon's Angel (6 page)

“He left hours ago. It is God’s will now... and the Major’s.”

My boots echoed harsh on the floorboards as I approached the bedside. Several candles burned, giving more illumination than when I had last visited. This time, I wished they had been extinguished to spare me the sight. Andreas was quietly gasping, fighting to take breath. His mottled face was puffed up badly, his eyes almost started from out his head. In all our adventures together, never had I seen him look so full of terror. And I had seen him blown off a rampart, beaten senseless by brigands, shot through, facing a hundred of the enemy with a smile of resignation. But I had never seen him like this.

I leaned over him. “Sweet Jesus, dear Andreas!”

“
Rikard
. I can’t breathe.” Andreas’s words came out as a wheeze and the stench of death was already upon him. He released the coverlet and tried to grasp my arm, the bloodied bandages unwinding as he flailed. I pulled in a chair, sat, and gripped his hand. It felt like a cold slab of mutton, and slowly he tried a feeble press in return.

“I beg you,” he whispered, and I leaned in to gather his words. “Help me...
Rikard
. Give me air...”

Andreas was giving battle, but how could he fight an enemy he could not see? And I, sitting there, a watcher only, was as helpless as any mortal who had seen Death lay hands on the chosen. No clever plan, no ruse, no entreaty would forestall the harvest of this poor soul. And few words of comfort could come to my mind. I told him to lie still, be at peace. I asked him if he could take a sip of strong water. Yet, I could not still his trembling, for all my soothing phrases.

Andreas turned his face towards me, his head lifting off the pillow. The cords of his neck strained as he fought for his voice. “I’m so frightened! Sweet Christ... I am alone!”

And my heart ached as I heard myself tell him to be brave, to trust in God. Those words rang hollow in my ears. And then he heaved his chest, fighting to gain breath. Alarmed, I rose, still clenching his hand. I heard him suck in another breath, rasping as he did so. He was suffocating as I watched.

“Not... like this,” he whispered, his head shaking such that his knit cap slipped off upon the pillow.

A black-robed figure came across the foot of the bed and crossed to the far side, standing next to Andreas. It was a priest. As the old soldier caught sight of the man, he started as if he had seen an apparition. The priest kept up his cadence, the Latin quietly and firmly streaming forth from his lips. I saw him bend down and place a crucifix in Andreas’s right hand.

I tried to calm my old friend, touching his shoulder, but it was to no avail. At my back, I heard one or two soldiers enter the room. The smell of the piss-soaked bed wafted strongly even as the prayers of the priest gained strength, his arm waving over Andreas in the sign of the cross. The priest leaned over, asking Andreas if he had confessed his sins.

“Tell me,” said the young beardless priest, soft but insistent.

I took a few steps backwards from the delivery of the final sacrament, but even so, I know that Andreas confessed nothing, only shaking his head. Whether he took this as a confession or not, the priest shook the oil from his little phial and anointed Andreas’s brow, then slowly, each hand. I heard him intone some prayer. When the priest had finished the prayer, all remaining in the chamber said an “amen.” And so, too, did I.

Of his last words, I know not. He mumbled to himself for a few moments and seemed not to be aware I was there anymore. Just before the end, I saw him fix his eyes on me. His lips moved but no words came forth. It was a look that shook me to my bones, a silent plea for rescue from what was carrying him far and away. My hand moved to cover my brow but a moment in grief, and when I again looked down, he was gone. I stood there for a time, very numb and very cold.

The regiment buried Andreas the next day. And as I walked from the churchyard, the thoughts whirled about: what did Fate hold for me? Dying an old man in my bed, gasping, drenched in piss and sweat? My lot was no different than that of Andreas. A few years away maybe, that was true, but my ship was on the very same course. And those same shoals of Death that he had foundered upon were looming fast for me. That wasn’t the way I planned on leaving this world for the next. I had to steer a new course, one that didn’t involve unmasking those in league with the Devil. I did not want to go down that path again. And maybe, maybe there was a way.

L
ORD
H
ERBERT WAS
curt but polite. “My lord Gerard has no wish to meet with you, Colonel. I am sorry.”

“Well,” I said, “I can’t blame him for that. I acted the knave when we last met.”

We walked together in the Tuileries, the bare branches of the pear trees rattling in the late winter air. The old man offered me no comfort.

“We misjudged your intentions, sir, which are most clear. So what further business can we possibly have?”

“I won’t mince my words. I am your man for the West.”

Herbert stopped short and turned to me. “Surely a jest, sir?”

“I am in deadly earnest, sir. I’ve reconsidered.”

His head swivelled about, looking to see what other people strolled the gardens. “Your contrary nature does not give me confidence. And I doubt very much that Lord Gerard would consider your recruitment after you made yourself so plain before.”

I nodded as I drew in a deep breath of cold air, tinged, even in winter’s embrace, with the stink of the Seine. “That may be true. But I am the man for the West and my lord Gerard knows the soldier I am. If anyone can accomplish this miracle it is I. There is no one else at court who can do this deed.”

“You are an artful adventurer, Sir Richard. That I give you. But the others may have their doubts.”

“Then there is yet one more reason. I won’t cost you a single shilling. I shall undertake this mission with my own resources. Soldiering in the service of the Cardinal pays well and I have little to spend the money on.”

Lord Herbert pulled his cassock closer about his shoulders as a stiff gust rocked us, whiffling the brims of our hats. “That’s a bold change of heart, sir. One that does not sit well with me.”

I shrugged off his caution. “My regiment moves north in a matter of weeks—or less. If I’m to fly the nest it will have to be sooner than later, before orders are received. I am ready to leave the moment you give the word.”

Herbert’s hand reached out and touched my wrist. “Steady on, sir, steady on. Even if Gerard agrees—and I am in no certainty of that—you must receive instruction. There is the matter of contacts, of ciphers, of places of rendezvous... you’ll have need of a travelling name.”

I looked Lord Herbert square in the eye. “I am no stranger to these things, of that be assured. As for a name and a story, I have that too.”

His eyebrows arched. “Have you now?”

“Call me Andreas Falkenhayn, wool merchant of Flanders.”

“A foreigner? The redcoats will seize you in an instant. No, that would not do at all.”

“The moment Richard Treadwell sets foot in England,” I said, my voice as low as I could make it, “he’s as good as dead if he is discovered. That was the bargain—if ever I returned, Cromwell will hang me. So be it. I understood the terms of my banishment, then as now. I’m not afraid to return but by God I will give myself a fighting chance.”

Herbert, flustered, strove to find the words. “But a Fleming? What... what will that accomplish?”

“Not a Fleming, a German. I speak the tongue well. A suit of clothes, the right hat, I grow my beard long, that is the trick,” I said.

“The trick to draw attention to yourself, more like. Who is this Falkenhayn?”

“
This
Falkenhayn, my lord, is an arrow speeding to the heart of the Tyrant. I ask you to draw the bow and send it on its way.”

Lord Herbert looked ahead again and began walking, a slow, measured pace. But he said nothing. I stood my ground there on the path and presently he noticed I was not at his side. He stopped and did a half turn to see what held me back.

“If our business is to conclude here,” I said, “then it is to be now. Done and dusted, sir. I am the only one who will answer this call to arms and that you know already. Make me your instrument.”

Lord Herbert looked at me and then off into the trees. “It is not for me alone to decide.” He turned fully, facing me. “Why then, this change of heart, Sir Richard? Surely it was not Gerard’s youthful taunts against your honour?”

I smiled. “It was not Lord Gerard. The example of a far older comrade has shown me my error. Unlike him, I still have the time to put things to right.”

“And if your offer of aid is refused, what then?” said Herbert. “Will you sulk off to fight the Spanish instead?”

I slowly closed the ground between us, hands thrust in the pockets of my breeches. “No,” I said quietly, “That was a lie. I think you know that I will go to England, just the same.”

And Herbert’s look of utter disarm was proof that he believed me too.

B
UT THERE REMAINED
one problem, one entirely divorced from the scheming of the Swordsmen. It was not my fear of how Mazarin would take the news of my sudden departure. I penned the resignation of my command knowing his fury would be swift at my failure to discover the Devil’s pawn among the exiles. God willing, he wouldn’t discover my absence until I was out of France. To further throw his hounds off the scent I let slip my intention to go to Sweden once again for employment as I had done years before. He was too crafty to swallow this whole so I sweetened the cake by making arrangements to send off a chest containing some worthless belongings by way of coach to an inn at Cologne, on the road to Stockholm. I was sure that distrustful musketeer, Lieutenant d’Artagnan, would quickly look for such arrangements, thereby buying myself a little more time to escape.

No, the problem was my mistress. She was far too sharp a pin to be fooled so easily as the Cardinal. Of my plans to fight the Spaniards, lavishly embellished by my yearning for the saddle, Marguerite drenched these with scorn. She knew that my regiment was staying put around Paris for the time to safeguard the king and she called me the bigger fool for thinking she would believe such a shallow ruse. So I changed tack, telling her that I would be going farther afield, to Germany, Denmark and Sweden, to find my comrades of old. She, better than anyone else, knew how the death of Andreas had shaken me. But this too fell upon stony ground and was met with a shriek of desperate outrage.

“You would leave me the discarded whore then?” She shook her head as if to answer the question herself. “No, you shall not buy me off with such a tale either, my love. There’s more to this change of heart than mere soldiering, I swear.” And she paused a moment, her eyes big and wet, before turning away. But then she turned back, looking at me hard. “You’re returning to England. That’s your clever plan, isn’t it? But why?”

I stammered that she was wrong but she cut me off with an accusing finger.

“No! I shall guess it, sir. I shall puzzle it out, for I know your heart better than you do.” And then a slow, grim smile crept onto her plump face, now bright pink with anger. “You’re going
home
. You’re going home to Devon. To find your wife and children.” She was nodding now, and quickly closing the ground between us as we stood in her little bedroom. “
Memento mori
. That’s why you’ve acted the baited bear these last days.”

I could say nothing, and the colours fluttered down from my mast.

“You would leave me here alone to this drudgery,” she said, “with my father returning in a few weeks to find I have been carrying on with you?”

“It’s time for me to go home again, Maggie. That’s the truth of it. And I don’t know what I shall find there.”

She seized me hard by the arm. “What you shall find? You shall find the end of a rope! You’ve told me that many times before. How could you think of such a mad adventure? You’re no longer some mooncalf of a boy.”

I moved to touch her cheek and she slapped my hand away.

“No emollients, sir! Your path is chosen and you’re abandoning me to the laughter of the magpies here at court. And to face the shame of my father—alone.” Those brown eyes had a strange glow, high-stoked rage and adoration mixed, enough to unsettle me. At that moment, she was poised to offer either a curse or a kiss.

I took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake as she tried to twist away from my embrace. “It is you who has my heart and no one else, woman! But I must return while there is still time to do so.” Marguerite ceased her twisting but would not look at me. “There are things that must be done there, things that cannot wait.”

“Then I shall travel with you.”

“It’s not safe there for you.”

“And it’s safe enough for you? You speak nonsense. Was it not you who told me before Christmas that the people would grow tired of Parliament’s edicts and Cromwell’s roar? ‘Spit them out’, you said. So wait!” She moved her hands to my neck. “Wait upon it, my love.”

“I cannot. This must be done. But I promise you I will return.” And I could feel her form sink inside my arms, the fight gone out of her.

“Then go if you must,” she said, her voice steady. “But just as you know not what waits for you in England, you will not know what awaits you here when you return. Nothing in this life is certain except its ending.”