Page 1 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)
T hamsine Granville had not begun the day with the intention of killing Oliver Cromwell.
Around her a jovial crowd pressed against the barricades, determined to enjoy the spectacle of the Lord Protector's ride in state to dine with the Lord Mayor of London. The bells of London, silenced for so many years, rang out, and above her, the flags of the City Guilds flapped in the chill wind.
But from across the road, she had been seen and recognised. A triumphant smile crossed her nemesis's handsome face and he raised his hand to his hat, doffing it as he bowed. He mouthed her name and started to push his way towards the barricade.
Thamsine swallowed, her mouth dry with fear. She only had a few moments to make good her escape, but the press of people to her rear hemmed her in, pushing her towards the barriers.
A roar went up from the crowd as the coach bearing Cromwell approached.
As it drew closer, the Lord Protector, clad in a reddish-coloured suit embroidered with gold, inclined his head to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd with all the aplomb of a man born to such a station.
She could see no trace of the simple farmer he had once professed to be.
Thamsine's heart beat a rapid tattoo as she stooped and gathered up the broken piece of brick at her feet. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, the false King, was about to become Thamsine Granville's unwitting protector.
Oblivious to his fate, Cromwell smiled, his right hand raised in a parody of benediction as if forgiving them their sins. At the sight of his face, solid and pudding-like, framed by the open window of the carriage, she raised her arm and threw with all the strength that she could muster.
The brickbat hit the body of the coach barely inches from the open window.
She got a brief impression of surprise on her intended victim's face.
The coach stopped, the horses rising in their traces, whinnying in alarm.
The crowd, stunned into silence, held its collective breath, every eye fixed on the ugly graze on the coach's paintwork where the brickbat had struck.
A roar of approbation went up, but Thamsine Granville had disappeared. In the instant her fingers uncurled from the missile, someone had grabbed her from behind. Strong fingers dug into her arm and drove her with force through the crowd that parted before them like the Red Sea.
The world roared in Thamsine's ears. She was only dimly aware of a commotion in the press around her. Soldiers yelled and a woman screamed but all she felt was utter despair. Despite her reckless act, somehow he had reached her.
Her captor thrust her down a dark, noisome alley. It was all going to end here, she thought.
Her knees buckled and she could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, only to be drawn back by a sharp, agonising tug on her arm as it was cruelly and expertly bent behind her.
‘Don't faint. Don't you dare faint. Now, unless you want to end your life on a gibbet on Tower Hill, you will co-operate fully in what we are about to do,’ he said.
She didn't recognise the voice, and her senses sprang back. She nearly screamed with relief. It wasn't him but her relief was short-lived as he turned her to face him, pushing her back against the wall and pinioning her arms at her side.
She closed her eyes as his body pressed against her and she braced herself for the blow or whatever punishment or unspeakable act was coming her way.
She did not expect to be kissed, firmly and expertly.
Her instinctive reaction was to resist, but with her arms and her head immobilised she was reduced to trying to kick her assailant. He responded by placing a booted foot on her instep. She gave a muffled yelp of pain.
‘Who's down there, then?’
A voice from the entrance to the alleyway caused her assailant to break off, allowing Thamsine the luxury of taking a deep breath. The fingers holding her arm tightened, digging into her flesh. It was a warning not to move, not to make another sound.
The soldier gave a ribald whistle. ‘Got yourself a tasty piece, then?’
In the shadows, she saw her assailant turn his head towards the soldier. ‘Now then, sergeant. Can't a man get a bit of privacy around here?’ he said in a low and well-modulated voice, with an unusual undertone to the accent that she could not place.
‘What's her charge?’ The soldier said.
Thamsine shifted, determined to protest the insinuation, but the firm and painful pressure on her upper left arm deepened and she kept her peace.
‘My dear sir, there are some pleasures beyond price.’
‘We're looking for a woman.’ The soldier's voice became clipped and businesslike. ‘Just tried to kill the Lord Protector. Has she come this way?’
‘I doubt I would have noticed. I have been otherwise occupied these minutes past.’
Thamsine squirmed in the tight grasp. The easy, lascivious intonation of his voice made her want to slap him. He may well have saved her life but his intentions seemed far from honourable.
‘Good day to you, sir. I wish you the joy of it.’
‘He's gone.’ Her rescuer removed his boot from her foot and stepped back, although he maintained his hold on her arm.
Thamsine found her voice. ‘Let me go. You're hurting me.’
‘Hurting you? Is that gratitude for saving you from the gibbet?’
He released her and she straightened, rubbing at the place where his fingers had pressed.
In the gloom of the alley, it was hard to make out his appearance, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat that hid his face, but she could see that he was clean-shaven, his hair, dark and rough-cut, skimming an immaculate, white collar.
‘Maybe I didn't want saving.’
He waved at the entrance to the alleyway. ‘Very well. No doubt you can catch up with the good sergeant if that's what you wish.’
To her embarrassment, she started to tremble with cold, fright, and with delayed shock, as the audacity and foolishness of what she had done began to sink in.
She had tried to kill the Lord Protector. Men had hanged for less.
In her desperate bid to escape the greater threat, she had given no thought to what penalty she may have had to pay had she been apprehended.
She looked up at her rescuer. She owed this man thanks for her deliverance, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘You do realise what you just did?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because I wanted him dead,’ she said, without much conviction in her voice. It was not the Lord Protector she had wanted dead.
‘Well, I'm sure there are plenty who would share the sentiment, but hurling brickbats at a coach is hardly the best way to accomplish that end.’
She drew herself up to her full height. ‘And what do you care?’
‘I don't,’ he answered. ‘I have enough problems of my own without rescuing dim-witted whores who choose to hurl objects at the Lord Protector.’
‘I'm not a whore.’
He touched his mouth. ‘Well, you certainly kiss like one.’
She raised her hand to give the impudent cad a good slap, but he caught her wrist. ‘Now, now, mistress. I apologise for calling you a whore. Perhaps you prefer ‘failed assassin’?’
He let her wrist go and her arm fell to her side.
‘I have nothing more to say to you, sir,’ she said, gathering what remained of her pride. ‘Thank you for saving my neck from the gibbet. I bid you good day.’
He did not attempt to stop her, standing aside to let her pass. As she did so, he bowed. ‘Good fortune to you, mistress.’
She gave him what she hoped was a withering glance and stepped back onto the street. It seemed unnatural that the crowd had resumed its normal bustle. Soldiers mingled with the passers-by, occasionally stopping a person to question them.
Thamsine, in her threadbare cloak and patched and faded dress, attracted no attention. With dragging footsteps, she traced the familiar way to the dreary, rodent-infested hovel on the outskirts of Blackfriars where she had lodged for the last few months.
The smell of cooking coming from the shops and homes she passed made her stomach growl in protest. She had not eaten since the previous day, and even that had been no more than a morsel of stale bread and a thin broth bought with her last coin.
If she wanted to eat, if she wanted to keep a roof over her head, she had only one choice.
The man who had rescued her had called her a whore and she, with her last shred of dignity, had denied it. She could never deny it again. She had sold everything worth selling and now she had only one thing left.
A couple of streets away from her lodging, she stopped in a boarded-up doorway.
She loosed her hair and shook it out. With shaking fingers she unlaced her bodice a little way, displaying a hint of her almost-flat chest. She hitched one side of her skirt to show what she hoped was a tantalising glimpse of ankle above the cracked shoes.
It was not, she thought, a very alluring picture, but it would have to do.
She took a deep breath and stepped back into the street, tossing her cloak back over her shoulders and adopting the hip-swinging saunter she had observed others of her newly adopted profession use.
Prospective customers should be in no doubt as to what trade she was plying.
They would not see how her heart hammered against her ribs and her stomach had become a hard ball of fear and self-loathing.
The part of her that still remembered who she was and where she had come from hoped and prayed that the men who frequented the dismal streets of Blackfriars would pass her by without a second glance.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and she gave a small yelp of alarm as she turned to face the man who had accosted her. A bearded face scrutinised her closely, his fingers digging painfully into her wrist.
‘What's yer charge?’ His breath smelt as if it came directly from the pits of a Hell charged with rotten teeth, onion and stale wine.
Her eyes widened. ‘Charge?’