The Fugitive’s Sword

The Fugitive’s Sword is set in the turbulent years of the 1620s when all of Europe was engulfed in what would become the Thirty Years’ War. In England, an increasingly ailing King James strove to keep his kingdoms out of the conflagration…

Theobalds House, Hertfordshire September 1624

King James stood, sweltering, by the blue marble fireplace beneath the hammer beam rafters two stories above him. The great hall of Theobalds House teemed with courtiers and servants. He wished the lot of them gone. A musician played in the gallery, but the music was melancholic. It had not helped James’ mood improve since he came in from hunting.
Neither had the letter in his hand.
That had been thrust at him as soon as he had alighted from his horse. He had ignored the importuning man who held it out, being eager to get inside to warmth and refreshment, and always aware that an assassin could be anywhere.
Being a king was dangerous in this age.
But then, James reflected, being a king was dangerous in any age.
Both his parents had died by violence and almost every king of his name, from the first King James two hundred years before, had met a violent end. Having reached his fifty-eighth year, longer lived than any of them, it was something James never forgot. It was also why he liked to wear well-quilted clothing when out in public. It might be enough to save him from an assassin’s blade, even if it felt tight over the paunch of his gout-ridden body and made him too warm.
The messenger had refused to be ignored. “From the Duke of Buckingham, majesty,” he insisted, raising his voice. “You said anything that came from his grace should be handed to you as soon as it arrived.”
Damnation, he had said that.
Turning back, James forced a grudging smile. He wasn’t pleased. He had hoped Steenie would come in person today. Besides, where once such a letter had brought him delight and comfort, more often than not now it left him with tight lips and a tighter heart as this one did.
He read it again as he stood by the hearth.
The letter was full of passion, but not like Steenie’s letters of old. There were few phrases of personal moment and little of his old affection. This was passion for a French marriage—equalling the ardour of a year and a half ago for one with Spain. But whereas James had been completely in favour of that project, this one with France he could not embrace. It would not bring peace. It would not further his grand mission to reconcile the divided religious factions of Europe.
Twenty years ago, he had ended the war with Spain, a war which his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, had relished, and now if Steenie and Baby Charles had their way, that war would ignite again.
Catholic and Protestant. Such bitter enemies that it was hard to imagine they grew from the same tree, their struggle tearing Europe apart. As the son of a Catholic mother and king of a Calvinist nation since infancy, James knew he was born to be a peacemaker. He had always been pragmatic, well aware he might never reconcile the two sides. However, he could perhaps bring them to a truce. All his policies and plans had been aimed at that mark. Even using his family in the cause when he sought to wed his daughter to the Elector Palatine, the leading Protestant prince of Germany, and his son to the Infanta, beloved sister of the Catholic Spanish king.
The first part of that plan had gone well. Princess Elizabeth married Frederick, the Elector Palatine and she was, James understood, pleased by her marriage, even finding love with her husband. But despite that, it went horribly wrong. The Protestant estates of Bohemia, fearing persecution, elected Frederick to be their king. The young couple had been dazzled by the offer. Against James’ own strongly spoken and sound advice, Elizabeth and Frederick had accepted, adding the Bohemian crown to their existing Palatinate lands and titles.
No one, least of all James himself, had been surprised when Emperor Ferdinand, who regarded the throne of Bohemia as his by birthright, sent an army to Prague to drive them out and now it seemed all Europe was caught up in their war. Even James had been forced to raise troops to join the efforts to free the Palatinate, now occupied by the emperor’s orders.
Meanwhile, his daughter and son-in-law lived in exile in The Hague, deprived of both Bohemia’s crown and their princely Palatinate lands. But the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces had been fighting against dominion by the Spanish-ruled Netherlands for as long as James himself had been alive, so their presence there risked drawing England back into that endless war.
Spain.
Once the name had summoned thoughts of his old friend Diego, who had been the Spanish ambassador to England for many years. But there was little except pain left in the word for him now.
After the Bohemian debacle, a marriage alliance with the King of Spain, a close cousin to the emperor, became even more essential. It could bring the restoration of his son-in-law’s lost Palatinate lands, his grandchildren’s patrimony, without any need for war. That was the only reason he had agreed to a madcap plan of Steenie and Charles. The pair had travelled unescorted and incognito through France, arriving in Madrid completely unannounced, hoping to take the Infanta’s heart by storm with such a romantic gesture. But once they were there, everything went wrong, and his boys had returned changed.
Embittered.
Complaining they had been treated with contempt, neither would hear anything more about a match with Spain. They had changed in other ways too. Ways James had no liking for at all. Charles had come back a man with his own mind on matters about which he had once been content to be governed. Worse yet, he and Steenie had a new closeness forged in their shared adventure that sometimes made James feel an outsider.
Now it was France they both wanted for marriage. And Spain? They wanted war with Spain. Revenge for the slights and insults of the Spanish court.
That thought was a bitter one.
James resisted the urge to cast the letter he held into the fire. Shaking his head, he instead slipped it inside his quilted doublet to sit next to his heart. He needed to forget matters of state, forget Steenie and seek company that would take his mind off all such things.
“Can you find me the laddie?” he asked the nearest man.
“The laddie, majesty?”
“Aye, Philip. Philip Lord. Find him for me.”
The last time he had seen young Philip had been a couple of days ago. They had been playing chess and the board was still set out with their unfinished game. Philip had been his main comfort during the long months when Steenie and Charles had gone to Spain and remained so through the turmoil, recriminations, and arguments that had continued for the year since their return. He was a breath of fresh air when set against the courtiers whose company James usually had to endure, being free of their endless quarrels, petty jealousies and politicking. With youthful good looks and athleticism, he had arrogance and charm, an uncomplicated heart, and a young and eager mind that was quick-witted and open to learning the wisdom James could offer. Yes, Philip was exactly what James most needed that evening.

He began to think he was to be denied even that.
In the end, he had to insist that the entire estate of Theobalds be turned inside out, but no one could find Philip Lord.
Much later, James sat alone at the chessboard in his private chambers, wondering. He picked up a pawn and held it gently in his hand. Then, getting up and ignoring the pain in his leg as he did so, he went to stand by one of the pictures on his wall.
A good likeness. A youth coming into his mid-teens, eyes a brilliant aquamarine, hair so fair it looked as pale as pearl. James studied the portrait, the pawn gripped in his hand, its shape impressed in his palm.
“What did they do to you?” he asked the young face in the picture, for in his heart there was no doubt that something ill had befallen the lad.
The portrait was silent.
Reluctantly, he turned away and called for his secretary so he could pen a reply to Steenie’s letter.
The pawn he put carefully back onto the gaming board.

The The Fugitive’s Sword is available as a Kindle on Amazon for 99p/c to purchase and free to read with a KU subscription.

It is the first book in a new stand-alone series, Lord’s Learning, that charts the younger years of Philip Lord and Kate, showing how they become the people we meet in Lord’s Legacy.

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