Free War Game by Anthony Price Page A

Audley have been? Would he have followed his head or his heart? Or his religion? Or his father? Or his county? Or the source of his income?
    But there was another thing for sure: of all wars, civil wars were the cruellest, 1640s and 1970s no different. Because the winning and the losing was rarely the end of them, as old Sir Jacob had seen—
    Paul Mitchell was leaning on a farm gate set back in the thickness of the hedge, waiting for him with well-simulated patience.
    No mistaking Paul. The first time Audley had seen him, across a table strewn with maps and documents in the Military Studies Institute, he’d been hidden under a near-revolutionary shock of mousey hair, and the last time the shock had been tamed to an army trim, blond-rinsed. Now the mouse-colour was back and the length too, with a van Dyke beard and moustache, cavalier-style and flecked with ginger. But no disguise, natural grown or artificial, could hide the predatory Paul underneath; at least, not from the eyes of the man who had recruited him to the Queen’s service.
    At the time, almost at the first glance, it had seemed the clever thing to attempt it; and every aptitude test and training report since then had confirmed his intuition. If there was any logic and justice to promotion, Paul would be running a section in five years’ time, and a department five years after that, and the whole bloody show five years after that .
    And in the meantime, what could be more sensible than to let him win his spurs under the control of the man who had identified his natural talents at a glance?
    God help us all, thought Audley. Paul is a fine feather in my cap—and how glad I am that I won’t be wearing that cap in fifteen years’ time!
    “Hullo, David. You’re looking bronzed and fit.”
    For a bet, Mitchell knew where he’d been these last weeks.
    “Bronzed and fit, my eye! I’m tired and bad-tempered, and you had better believe that… . Good afternoon, Paul. You look like a sociology lecturer at a radical polytechnic. Does this gate open, or do I have to climb over it?”
    “It doesn’t open.”
    “But you have to watch out for your trousers—there’s a strand of barbed wire on the top, just this side. I’ve already torn my jeans on the danm thing,” said Frances Fitzgibbon as she came into view at Mitchell’s shoulder. “And I think I’ve spiked my bottom, too.”
    Audley stared at her against his will. The thought of Frances Fitzgibbon’s little bottom was arresting, as was the thought and sight of all her other components, miniature though they were. It wasn’t that she was in the least beautiful, or even that she was pretty except in a pert, early-flowering, childish way. But at first sight she was the sensual essence of every man’s imagined indiscretion with the girl glimpsed across the shop counter.
    “Good afternoon, Mrs. Fitzgibbon— Frances,” said Audley carefully.
    It was always the same: after that first sight the truth about Frances Fitzgibbon dowsed desire like a bucket of ice-water. Despite appearances—which so totally belied reality that she was worth a fortune to the department as she stood, torn jeans and all—Frances was a kindly and serious-minded young woman trapped in the wrong body, who deserved a better fate than having to work with Paul Mitchell … and maybe with David Audley too.
    “How are Faith and little Cathy?” asked Frances.
    “They were fine when I last saw them some weeks ago.”
    The brown eyes became sympathetic. “Like that, is it? They double-crossed you again? Poor David—I’m sorry.”
    “And I’m sorry about the—barbed wire.”
    Mitchell grinned. “I offered to render first aid, but she wasn’t having any.”
    The eyes flashed. “I should hope not!”
    Mitchell too, thought Audley. But that was the predictable male response, a sort of protective lust, and at least they were of an age. Two more babies.
    “Never mind, Frances dear,” Mitchell went on unrepentantly, “you have an