A Queen's Spy, - [best books under 200 pages .txt] 📗

had pierced the skin, blood ran down the blade in a thin red line.

“Stop!” It was Edward Byrne’s voice.

Richard’s hand tightened on the hilt. The pressure on the tip increased. Geoffrey yelped, pressing himself back harder against the wall.

“Stop! Damn you. Do you hear me?” Byrne yelled as he ran across the hall.

Breathing hard Richard released Geoffrey, who dropped heavily back against the wall, hands to his throat. Not finished with him, Richard delivered a punch to the stomach that had Geoffrey on his knees retching, and a kick to the head sent him rolling across the floor to fetch up against Martha’s body.

Richard turned from the son to the father. “None here deserved this.” The blooded dagger still in his hand he pointed it towards the bodies.

Edward paled, a nervous stare casting around the wreckage of the hall. “What’s happened?”

“Your son is what happened.” Richard still fuelled with rage strode past Byrne and, as he drew level, he swung the blade down, impaling it in the wooden top of the table.

Edward flinched, backing away a step. “Anne, Catherine? Surely not!”

“I cannot save them for you now. Thanks to your son, there is a certain irreversible finality about the situation.” Richard wrenched the knife from the split wood and turned his back on Edward.

 

†

 

When the man had finally spoken Jack recognised him. His smashed front teeth leant a whistling lilt to his words that he remembered as belonging to one of the men he’d seen occasionally in Harry’s London household. Spratty was his name.

That Harry had tracked them down, and that somehow Alan was involved in this, felt like a physical blow. Jack knew he needed to get back to Richard as quickly as possible.

Jack was about to ask the man another question when the unmistakable sound of approaching riders met his ears. Swearing, Jack got to his feet. It wasn’t, thankfully, more of Harry’s men, but Richard’s, lead by Dan and Mat.

The rider’s brought their horses to an abrupt stop.

“Bloody hell Jack, are you alright?” Dan, concerned, dropped from the horse and stared down at the man at Jack’s feet. “What did he want? Jesus, he’s in a right state. Did he try to rob you?”

Jack shook his head.

“What then?”

“He’s Harry’s man. There were two of them and they wanted Richard,” Jack said, his voice still angry.

“We need to warn Richard, he’s taken the rest of the men and ridden to Assingham already,” Dan asserted, and then looking down at the man at Jack’s feet, added slowly, “and you can’t leave him there either.”

There was a terrified howl, followed by a plea from the man as he realised his fate had just been sealed. The noise was cut off abruptly a moment later.

 

Chapter Twelve

 

†

 

Soon the Manor was the scene of organised activity. The looting, drinking, and raping, which had been the tone whilst Geoffrey had briefly been in control of Assingham, were replaced by order and military efficiency. Riders left with messages; horses were stabled in the stalls below Catherine; tables in the hall were righted and the floor cleared. Geoffrey, enlisting the help of those who had arrived with him, moved the bodies and piled them in the courtyard, away from the food and drinking water. Byrne’s co-conspirators who were to join those already at Assingham had not yet arrived.

Edward, his expression stony, had been unable to watch as the dead were removed from the hall.

“This is not Geoffrey’s fault. This was my doing,” Edward said bleakly, “I committed Assingham and these are the results.

Richard regarded him with a cold stare. “If you cannot control him, then yes, the blame is yours,” he replied harshly.

Byrne did not answer. If Richard could feel the older man’s discomfort rising, he did nothing to allay it. Edward was, however, swiftly forgotten as Richard’s eyes had alighted on the figure of Jack dropping from his saddle. It was obvious from the expression on his brother’s face there was something he wished to urgently impart.

Jack had been challenged before he reached Assingham, and it was Marc’s shout that was his pass through the gates and into the courtyard. The plan had not been flawed and appeared to have been executed well.

Sliding from his saddle his eyes settled on the piled bodies.

Dear God! How could this have happened?

Marc moved in and took the reins of Jack’s horse.

“What happened?” Jack asked with urgency, nodding towards the bodies.

“Byrne’s son got here before you and slaughtered the lot of them,” Marc supplied, grubby fingers tugging at his beard.

Jack rubbed calloused hands over his face, swearing, as he suddenly realised the cost of his delay. The cost of sending Dan and Mat to collect the men.

“Master was madder than Hell. I thought he was going kill Byrne’s son, and so did Byrne,” Marc continued.

Jack’s heart beat loudly in his chest.

This is all I need.

“Master nearly cut his throat, so I heard.” Jack did not appear to be listening, and Marc added, “Do you hear me?”

“He hears.” Both men turned to see the Master, his face dark, eyes without humour, approaching across the yard. “Jack. A word inside if I may.”

The words might have sounded formally polite, but there was an all too clear edge of anger behind them. Jack stepping quickly after him, followed Richard into the empty hall.

Richard rounded on him as soon as they were alone. “I don’t know whether it is the eight dead bodies outside that angers me so much, or the fact that you didn’t do as you were instructed. Again!”

“I was trying to keep you from Harry’s men. I told you Alan was up to something, didn’t I? But you wouldn’t listen,” Jack shot back, his own anger rising

“Harry’s men?” Richard repeated, his manner instantly changing, the anger gone from his voice.

“There were two of them, one got away,” Jack replied.

“And the other?”

Jack shrugged and said, “He didn’t.”

“Are you sure there were just two of them?” Richard asked.

“Fairly sure,” Jack replied, “Robby told me of Alan’s plan to get rid of you.”

“Dan told me what was going on, I knew what Alan was up to,” Richard said, then pressing a hand to his temple and meeting his brother’s eyes he added, “what I didn’t know was when he was planning to execute them.”

“You knew…!” Jack blurted.

“Froggy Tate told me days ago that not only had Alan met with someone, he didn’t know who, but that he was spreading the word that they would be rid of me. Surprisingly enough, not everyone wants to see me cold in the ground. Alan told Froggy that I had committed murder when I was in London and that it had finally caught up with me. Froggy wasn’t convinced that the pair Alan had been talking to were the King’s men and came to tell me so.”

“I don’t believe you knew and did nothing! Why didn’t you tell me?” There was utter disbelief in Jack’s voice.

“What exactly would you have me do? Froggy was to tell me if he heard anything else, and in the meantime, I decided to avoid riding out alone.” Richard replied. “Dealing with Harry’s men was a secondary issue. I needed the men here to support Byrne.”

“Christ! I told Mat and Dan to bring the men here, if I’d got here sooner this wouldn’t have happened.” Jack’s voice was filled with regret.

“Perhaps.” Richard studied his brother’s exhausted face. “Though Geoffrey set out much sooner than he was meant to, even if you had arrived when you were supposed to it would still have been too late.”

Both men heard the commotion in the yard. Richard, striding past Jack, headed for the door. Two of Richard’s lookouts had intercepted a rider who wouldn’t answer their questions. When they found a heavily sealed letter on his person they had dragged him back to Assingham.

“Take him inside and lock him up,” Richard ordered, taking the papers into his keeping. Pierre and Robby, the messenger pinioned between them, headed towards the main house.

 

†

 

Richard, the letter in his hand, ignored Byrne’s inquisitive glances and walked towards the fireplace, breaking the seal as went. Jack, crossing his arms across his chest, blocked Byrne’s passage across the Hall, and the older man, grumbling, left the room. Dan appeared at the open door and crossed to where Jack stood.

“What a bloody mess this is, no wonder the Master was madder than Hell,” Dan said under his breath.

“I know, I’ve seen it,” Jack replied more roughly than he intended. “But it was Harry’s men, they’d tracked him here. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t have stopped this.”

“I know,” Dan said in reply. “Where is the Master now?”

“Over there,” Jack gestured behind him to where Richard stood near the fireplace, the remains of a smouldering fire still smoking in the hearth.

“Well, it appears, brother, that we are on the wrong side.” Richard spoke from where he stood near the fire. He’d thrown on one folded sheet and was watching as embers flared and the flames turned it to ash.

“Now that’s nothing new, is it?” Jack’s tone was resigned. “So what’s changed?”

“London has declared for Mary. We have been lucky enough to intercept a messenger carrying this news to her at Framlingham. The ships have mutinied and turned on Northumberland, stopping his advance. He’s at Cambridge now. His mistake was leaving the city,” Richard mused. “He should have held London.”

“Who knows?” Jack asked, coming to stand close to his brother.

“At the moment? Northumberland and a few others. We must change sides, and quickly; we are only hours ahead of the news.” Richard pulled two more letters from his doublet and added them to the fire, the paper curling in the heat before the flames blackened the sheets.

“It does not surprise me at all that our plans have been ruined again,” Jack stated bluntly. “So how do you plan to get us out of this then? Exactly what do you intend to do?”

“Ride for Mary. Take this,” Richard held up the recently won letter, “kneel and place myself and my men at her disposal. She knows not as yet that her position is so strong.”

“And do you think that Lord Byrne is about to let you ride out of here once he realises you have turned against him?” Jack pointed out.

“He will have no choice. Half the men here are mine. He is unlikely to be able to prevent us leaving if we wish to, is he now? Who is going to stop me? Geoffrey? I doubt it.”

“True,” Jack observed.

Richard turned his attention to Dan, “Did you find her?”

“Like you said, she’s in the stable. She was bloody lucky,” Dan replied

“Did she see you?” Richard asked, his attention straying back to the course-altering letter he still held.

“No. She’s in the roof, right back in the corner like a scared mouse. What are you going to do with her? It’s only a matter of time before she either comes down herself or someone finds her up there, and tomorrow the place will be swarming with men. Someone will see her,” Dan replied.

“You have met her before at Hazeldene – haven’t you?” Richard was forced to turn more of his concentration to the issue.

“Well, I suppose she would recognise me. I’ve been around when she has