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PART ONE

The Chase

CHAPTER 1: NICK: PACKET AND CHANGE

The mutinies of the Army of Flanders spelt military and financial disaster for Spain.

The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567 – 1659

Geoffrey Parker

 

Nick rode towards the smoke.

And a pillar of smoke shall guide them during the day. The blasphemous thought brought forth wry humor. Not quite 40 years the Spanish have been wandering and warring through the Netherlands, but near enough. Though they are more akin to the plague of locusts than the Chosen People. 

There were peasants working in the fields, but not many. They all knew that the smoke meant Spanish nearby and that those Spanish tercios were well pissed off.

Corpses swinging from gibbets, object lessons to the rest of the mutineers, stood sentry outside the village. Captain Velasco had put down the mutiny with his usual enthusiasm and bloodthirstiness. I hope he hasn’t sent the Irish to the dancing master. Long ride for nothing. Crows rose from the bodies as Nick rode past, then settled back to their meal. Continue reading “(Broken Instrument) CHAPTER 1: NICK: PACKET AND CHANGE”

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May, 1590: Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s feared spymaster, is dead. And someone is unraveling his networks. A perfect instrument of intelligence has become broken.

Three men are plunged into the morass of Elizabethan intelligence operations.

Robert Poley: He ran some of those networks in Flanders. He has to catch the traitor.

Nick Crossby: Deep cover in Flanders for several years. Running for home wounded with his cover blown, he might know who burned him.

Richard Helmsley: English Catholic agent in exile. Chasing after Nick at the orders of his master, Hugh Owen, Catholic spymaster in Flanders.

They all come together in London. Secrets will be revealed and blood will be spilled. Because in London is also Mad Meg, crime queen, and her silver cleaver.

 

I was trying for Jason Bourne in Elizabethan England, if Jason Bourne was played by Ray Winstone.