Free War Game by Anthony Price

anyone—interesting and possibly significant, because he was one of the first to look for the gold… . But then after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 she prudently secured her estates by marrying the first impoverished Royalist who came her way. A sharp fellow by the name of Charles Ratcliffe, oddly enough.”
    The original Charlie Ratcliffe.
    “Even without the gold it was a good match for him,” continued Nayler. “His family had lost everything in the war, confiscated or sold—I don’t know which, and she brought him about five thousand acres in exchange for his name. It was a good English compromise, even if he was a bit of a bounder.”
    Pirates, religious and political fanatics— and now bounders. If Charlie was a throwback to the seventeenth century he had everything going for him, no doubt about that, from the Parrott-Steyning-Ratcliffe connection.
    But time was running out—
    “You don’t happen to know how the gold was found, do you, Professor?”
    Nayler chuckled malevolently. “Yes I do—as it happens. But that’s classified, I’m afraid, Audley. You’ll have to wait your turn for that like the rest. It’s a little surprise we’ve got up our sleeves, don’t you know.”
    Bastard, bastard, bastard.
    “But I’ll tell you this, Audley: they were clever, Parrott and Steyning were. Both devious and ruthless men, no question about that. Just you wait for my little television programme, eh? Clever and devious and ruthless—and Parrott was the more ruthless of the two.”
    The pips sounded, and an obscene insult formed on Audley’s tongue.
    But then Dr. Highsmith shook his head: revenge was a dish which should always be served cold.
    “Thank you, Professor. You’ve been extremely—“
    The phone cut him off. Extremely, unpleasantly, humiliatingly helpful. Nothing was going to shake the historical existence of that gold. The first cutting had been accurate enough. It remained to be seen whether he could improve on the second one.

3
    THE SIGNPOST was just where the Brigadier had said it would be, exactly at the crest of the ridge. But then the Brigadier was always exact.
    Audley parked his new 2200 carefully on the verge and studied the sign without enthusiasm. After his initial resistance he had felt the old inevitable curiosity stirring, not for the job itself, but for the ultimate why hidden somewhere at the heart of it. But now the reaction to the curiosity was setting in: such curiosity was well enough for Rikki-tikki the young mongoose, but for a respectable middle-aged husband and father it was a poor substitute for the soft breasts and soft cheeks of home after a long journey from foreign parts.
    The sign was small and newly painted, or even brand new, and it bore the legend To the Monument in capital letters, and Swine Brook Field 1643 in lower case beneath them.
    He climbed stiffly out of the car and surveyed the landscape. The crest of the ridge was quite sharp, almost a miniature hog’s back compared with the undulations to the east and west of it.
    But Swine Brook had to be the key, and in the valley to the west a straggle of willows and thick bushes marked the line of a stream. On his right the pastureland ran down towards the stream, flattening for the last two hundred yards into a rich water-meadow.
    Swine Brook Field: the field where they once let the pigs loose.
    He followed the signpost’s finger down a rutted track along the line of the hog’s back between overgrown hedges of bramble and hawthorn. If this had been the battle-front of one of the 1643 armies it would have been a strong position, no doubt about that with the hedge to hide the musketeers and the reverse slope to the east to snug down the cavalry out of sight.
    Except that he didn’t know which side had fought where at Swine Brook Field yet, only that it had been the King’s Cavaliers who had won the day.
    Cavalier—wrong, but romantic; Roundhead—right, but repulsive.
    Which side would Sir David