thrust into his vision again. The Governor was embarrassed, and confused, and trying to find a way in which Thurloe and the Committee for Security were responsible for what had happened today. The words came singly and incoherent, and Thurloe had just looked at him, silently, and eventually the Governor stamped away back to his violated lair.
The secret passage. The cell. The passages between them and the passage leading to the other side of the castle and the escape.
There had to be somewhere else. There had to be somewhere to wait while the foolish Parliament men bumbled around in the cold warren of tunnels, while they gaped stupidly at the empty cell and summoned the courage to step into the darkness of the Prince’s secret passage.
There were any number of places: side tunnels, abandoned chambers, piles of rubble.
Compensatory lengthening affects first aorist forms whose verbal root ends in a sonorant.
Did the spirits know this place or were they guessing? The secret passage; the escape through the opposite side of the castle. Were they desperate or calculating? The distraction; the bravado. Discount places with inadequate chance of concealment. Discount places that might be simply or accidentally checked. Discount the indefensible, discount the dead-ends.
In Attic and Ionic Greek, the sigma in the first aorist suffix causes compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.
It must be a place between the Prince’s passage and the areas where the Governor and the guards were most likely to be. The spirits needed the pursuit to go past them into the cell and the passage and that side of the castle – clattering and shouting, confused and angry, red faces and conflicting orders – leaving the way clear to the other side.
Thurloe at a junction of passageways, looking at the grit around his boots, looking at the patterns in the flagstones, looking down the passage in front of him, past a stairwell entrance to where the dust swirled idle and golden in a column of light from a hole in the roof above.
In Aeolic Greek, the sigma causes compensatory lengthening of the sonorant.
They must have waited for some time:
The letter will bring these foolish Parliament men to the wrong part of the castle, but I can’t cut the time too finely. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for the foolish Parliament men to snap at my bait. I can’t risk them coming before I’ve reached my hiding-place. Where might I sit in relative comfort for an hour or so?
Twenty steps up the spiral staircase Thurloe found a spot where the grit had been brushed away by a pair of recent backsides, and scuffings beneath where four boots might have rested for a time.
This’ll do. We can hear the foolish Parliament men scampering past below, we can slip out smart enough, but we’ll have time to get ready if someone does by some chance come up here.
He sat down beside them – on the step below, anyway, as a younger man might.
These men – the one who broke in, at least – they knew this place. They know places like this. This is their country, and it always has been, and I am an interloper.
The remarkable business of the letter.
Was this all fantastic chance?
The effectiveness of the timings, the smoothness with which the foolish Parliament men fitted into the plan.
He knew when the letter would arrive.
He knows our systems
.
The eyes widened a little, and the staircase was momentarily colder. Thurloe pulled his cloak closer around him, and forced himself to settle back against the ancient smoothness of the centre pillar.
But they cannot have known that I would come today. They did not know of me.
He passed the rest of his hour in more companionable silence, wondering at the men so close to him.
Hot and uneasy and exchanging empty expressions of uncertainty and bravado, the three riders followed the tree line to the track, and the track as it led into open country and to the elm, and then turned as instructed and dropped into the welcome
The secret passage. The cell. The passages between them and the passage leading to the other side of the castle and the escape.
There had to be somewhere else. There had to be somewhere to wait while the foolish Parliament men bumbled around in the cold warren of tunnels, while they gaped stupidly at the empty cell and summoned the courage to step into the darkness of the Prince’s secret passage.
There were any number of places: side tunnels, abandoned chambers, piles of rubble.
Compensatory lengthening affects first aorist forms whose verbal root ends in a sonorant.
Did the spirits know this place or were they guessing? The secret passage; the escape through the opposite side of the castle. Were they desperate or calculating? The distraction; the bravado. Discount places with inadequate chance of concealment. Discount places that might be simply or accidentally checked. Discount the indefensible, discount the dead-ends.
In Attic and Ionic Greek, the sigma in the first aorist suffix causes compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.
It must be a place between the Prince’s passage and the areas where the Governor and the guards were most likely to be. The spirits needed the pursuit to go past them into the cell and the passage and that side of the castle – clattering and shouting, confused and angry, red faces and conflicting orders – leaving the way clear to the other side.
Thurloe at a junction of passageways, looking at the grit around his boots, looking at the patterns in the flagstones, looking down the passage in front of him, past a stairwell entrance to where the dust swirled idle and golden in a column of light from a hole in the roof above.
In Aeolic Greek, the sigma causes compensatory lengthening of the sonorant.
They must have waited for some time:
The letter will bring these foolish Parliament men to the wrong part of the castle, but I can’t cut the time too finely. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for the foolish Parliament men to snap at my bait. I can’t risk them coming before I’ve reached my hiding-place. Where might I sit in relative comfort for an hour or so?
Twenty steps up the spiral staircase Thurloe found a spot where the grit had been brushed away by a pair of recent backsides, and scuffings beneath where four boots might have rested for a time.
This’ll do. We can hear the foolish Parliament men scampering past below, we can slip out smart enough, but we’ll have time to get ready if someone does by some chance come up here.
He sat down beside them – on the step below, anyway, as a younger man might.
These men – the one who broke in, at least – they knew this place. They know places like this. This is their country, and it always has been, and I am an interloper.
The remarkable business of the letter.
Was this all fantastic chance?
The effectiveness of the timings, the smoothness with which the foolish Parliament men fitted into the plan.
He knew when the letter would arrive.
He knows our systems
.
The eyes widened a little, and the staircase was momentarily colder. Thurloe pulled his cloak closer around him, and forced himself to settle back against the ancient smoothness of the centre pillar.
But they cannot have known that I would come today. They did not know of me.
He passed the rest of his hour in more companionable silence, wondering at the men so close to him.
Hot and uneasy and exchanging empty expressions of uncertainty and bravado, the three riders followed the tree line to the track, and the track as it led into open country and to the elm, and then turned as instructed and dropped into the welcome
Similar Books
