Barker sneered. ‘Colchester.’
‘But__’
‘You hoped for London, did you? For a chance to confer with your troublemaking friends and collect the latest seditious pamphlets? Fortune has failed you. I never travel through London unless I must: it’s naught but dirty roads and slow traffic. We’ll go round by St Albans and Chelmsford.’
The words ‘I wanted to see my wife!’ hovered on Jamie’s tongue. He swallowed them: mention Lucy, and he gave this jeering enemy the key to his heart. In bitter disappointment he contemplated challenging the other man to a duel; his hand itched for the weight of his sword. He dismissed the idea: Barker wouldn’t fight a man who was under his orders. ‘I’ll see you whipped.’ No, a challenge would only provide Barker with the excuse he wanted.
He considered turning his horse about and deserting instead – but that was no good. Ireton knew where to find him – or, worse, knew where to find his wife. Jamie was not entirely sure what Lucy was printing now, but he was sure that it hadn’t been licensed. He dared not attract attention to her.
What couldn’t be avoided must be endured. He checked his horse and fell back, riding in silence because he couldn’t trust himself to speak.
Another day of hard riding. They reached St Albans in the afternoon, paused to collect fresh horses, and rode on as far as Hertford by evening. Next morning they took the road out of Hertford through Ware.
Jamie remembered the mutiny there, half a year before; remembered his arrest by the Army he now served. He thought again of Nick, dying in agony at Maidstone, and wondered angrily why he had ever agreed to re-enlist. He knew the answer, though: he had wanted to get out of prison and marry his sweetheart.
Barker slowed to ride beside him. ‘I too was here last November,’ he said conversationally.
Jamie gazed between his horse’s ears and said nothing.
‘I helped gather up all the copies of The Agreement of the People after the soldiers threw them away. We used them to light fires all the way to Windsor.’
Jamie looked up, once again tempted to challenge Barker; the man’s avid expression killed the impulse. ‘Why do you hate us?’ he asked instead.
‘You would plunge the world into anarchy,’ Barker replied at once. ‘If all men would be masters and none will serve, what other result could there be than perpetual strife?’
‘So why did you fight for Parliament?’ Jamie asked in disgust. ‘A dutiful servant would have supported the King!’
Barker flushed. ‘King Charles was a Papistical tyrant!’
Jamie stared. The opinion was common enough, but Cromwell and Ireton favoured religious toleration: their own religious opinions were among those Parliament wished to suppress.
‘I’m not one of those who oppose toleration!’ Barker said defensively. ‘But Papistry is another matter. The Papists want nothing more than to subjugate us all, and plunge us back into superstitious darkness. They—’
‘Anyone would think that Charles Stuart had signed over his kingdom to the Pope!’ Jamie interrupted. ‘In truth, though, as you well know, he was never anything but Protestant. His crime was to persecute Puritans – and now they’re persecuting in turn. Did we go to war only to replace bishops with presbyters?’
Barker seemed at a loss for an answer. ‘I went to war to maintain our ancient form of government,’ he said at last, ‘which the King had sadly abused. You Levellers, though, would destroy it altogether, and in its place set up this foul democratic Commonwealth!’
‘How can you accuse us of wanting to destroy a thing which was torn to shreds before ever we began to speak out? At least we have a proposal for the government of this nation! What would you do? Restore a king who’s refused to agree any limit to his power? Submit to a Parliament which abuses all who disagree with it – including its own Army? Crown Cromwell?’
Barker went red. ‘Better Cromwell than Lilburne!’
Jamie snorted. ‘First you complain that we would set up democracy; now, that we would make Lilburne king! It cannot be both.’
Barker glared, but hadn’t thought of a reply when a farm cart in the road before them forced him to spur his horse aside, and ended the conversation.
The lieutenant tried several times to start the argument again, but Jamie refused to respond, and took a certain satisfaction from the other’s anger. They rode on along the rutted country roads, and reached Chelmsford late in the afternoon.
Chelmsford was in disarray. The local militia had joined the rebels and gone to Colchester. Men from London had been hurriedly drafted in to provide a garrison, with a few officers from the New Model to provide stiffening. Jamie and Barker arrived at the guildhall to find it crowded with supplicants come to beg the release of townsmen who’d been arrested for their part in the militia’s defection. Barker shoved past them impatiently. He was now in a great hurry to reach Colchester, and, to Jamie’s dismay, when he at last reached the garrison commander he demanded fresh horses to set out again at once.
‘We’ve scarce horses enough for our own!’ complained the garrison commander.
‘You’ve the ones we rode here from St Albans,’ Barker said. ‘They’ll be good enough after a day’s rest.’
The commander scowled. ‘If they’ll be good enough after a rest, then give them a rest, and take them on to Colchester tomorrow!’
Barker sneered and held out his letter of commission. ‘Shall I tell General Ireton you denied me?’
They were provided with fresh horses.
It was nearly six o’clock when they set out again. Exhausted and desperately saddle-sore, Jamie shifted his weight from one stirrup to the other, trying to ease his aching rear. He longed for a chance to stop and lie down – though he had no intention of looking weak in front of Barker by saying so.
They’d picked up the main road from London to Colchester, and with the fresh horses they made good time, travelling nearly ten miles before the light began to fade. Just as Jamie was beginning to fear that Barker meant to ride all night, the lieutenant drew rein at a crossroads where there was an inn.
It was a good-sized place, stone-built with a large stable; the smoking chimney promised hot food in the kitchen. Barker dismounted and led his horse into the yard, calling ‘Boy!’ imperiously. A middle-aged ostler appeared from the stable and stared at them stupidly. Barker handed the man his mount’s reins. ‘We’ll stop the night. Walk them up and down before you water them. We’ve just rid from Chelmsford, and they’re hot.’
The ostler looked frightened. ‘Sir,’ he said hesitantly, ‘the house . . . you should not . . . I fear the house is . . .’
‘If it’s full, someone can sleep in the stable!’ Barker said impatiently, and strode on towards the inn. Jamie met the ostler’s eyes and shrugged, but the man was goggling at his scars. He dismounted stiffly and followed Barker.
The din of voices from the main room of the inn died down as Barker entered; Jamie, following, found himself confronting a room-full of startled faces in a deepening silence. The inn was dark and crowded, and it was hard to make out details, but it seemed that the customers were not local farmers: there were some good broadcloth coats there. The certainty of danger struck Jamie before he could grasp the reason for it, and his hand dropped to the hilt of the cutlass at his side.
One of the men got to his feet – and yes, he too had a sword at his belt, and a hand on its hilt. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
Barker, too, had realized that something was amiss, but had no idea what. He stared blankly, his mouth hanging open.
‘Roundhead spies!’ said a voice from the back of the crowd, and a tremor went through the room. Cavaliers, Jamie realized; either a foraging party from the forces in Colchester, or deserters trying to make their way home. Either way, the red coats he and Barker wore had marked them as the enemy.
Jamie caught Barker’s shoulder; the lieutenant jumped. Jamie gave the shoulder a jerk, then turned on his heel and strode back out of the inn. The ostler was still
in the yard; he had unsaddled Barker’s mount, but Jamie’s stood waiting, reins looped loosely about a hitching post. Jamie started toward it. Somebody grabbed his arm; he glanced round, hand raised to fend off an attacker, and found that it was Barker. The lieutenant’s eyes were wide and his teeth gleamed wetly in a gaping mouth. Jamie paused, startled and confused. Barker’s face convulsed suddenly in loathing. He pivoted on a heel, and with all his weight flung Jamie back toward the door of the inn. Jamie staggered into somebody else, and suddenly everything was shouting and fists. He blocked a blow with his bad hand and tried to draw his sword; somebody knocked his hand before he could get the weapon free of its sheath. He dropped to the ground, still trying to draw the sword – then, as a booted foot stamped savagely at his fingers, gave up, and simply curled his arms over his head and huddled up as a flurry of kicks battered him. A pistol went off, and in the momentary silence that followed the shot he heard horse-hooves galloping away.
Somebody swore. A final kick landed in his ribs. Another pistol went off. Somebody yelled, ‘Musket, fetch the musket!’ and somebody else replied, ‘Too damned late!’ Then a strong authoritative voice asked, ‘What became of the other one?’
‘Here,’ said somebody. Rough hands grabbed Jamie and hauled at him; he let them pull him to his feet, and found himself in the middle of a crowd of armed and angry cavaliers. One of them twisted his arms behind his back with a jerk; fingers questioned his iron brace, then gripped hard. He stood still, shocked and unresisting. A hard-faced man in a green coat shouldered his way through the mob, sword in hand.
The sword rose. Jamie had faced death before – but then he’d been fighting for a cause he believed in. To die like this, at some nameless crossroads, so that Isaiah Barker could make good his escape – ‘Mercy!’ he cried desperately. ‘Please!’
Greencoat paused, lowering the sword a little. ‘Answer me some questions, then! Who are you?’
Jamie swallowed, suddenly sick with hope and fear together. ‘James Hudson. A blacksmith.’
‘Christ, what a face!’ said somebody.
‘An Army blacksmith,’ said Greencoat harshly.
‘Not by my choice,’ Jamie replied. ‘I swear before the throne of God Almighty that I’d much rather be home with my wife!’
Somebody laughed, and Greencoat’s mouth quirked. ‘Who was your friend?’
‘No friend of mine,’ Jamie replied at once. ‘His name’s Isaiah Barker. He’s a lieutenant, a dispatch rider for Commissary-General Ireton.’
That got a reaction. ‘A dispatch rider?’ Greencoat repeated. ‘For Ireton?’
‘Aye. He was sent to Lieutenant Gen. Cromwell at Pembroke. He collected me on the way back, because Ireton wants blacksmiths.’
Somebody whistled. ‘You were coming from Pembroke?’ asked Greencoat. ‘Why did you stop here?’
‘It’s dusk,’ Jamie pointed out. ‘We were tired.’ Even as he said it he understood that he and Barker had been mistaken for scouts from a troop that was hunting the cavaliers. ‘We were but two,’ he said breathlessly, ‘and we were riding east. If there are patrols near, Barker knows nothing of them. He must ride to Colchester to raise the alarm – or else back to Chelmsford, I know not which is nearer.’ His arms hurt; he shifted, and the iron brace knocked against some piece of metal on the man behind him with a muffled chink.
Greencoat noticed. ‘What’s that?’
Jamie glanced back at the man who was holding him. The pock-marked profile scowled, but Greencoat nodded, and the man’s grip loosened. Jamie eased his mutilated hand free and held it out for inspection. The dusk had not yet given way to dark: it was still easy to see. Greencoat stared a moment. ‘Clever work,’ he commented. ‘You made that yourself, did you, blacksmith?’
‘Aye,’ Jamie agreed. It was clever work, and had grown steadily more so since he first fitted it. It had a pin now that could hold the thumb-piece in place to avoid tiring his stump with long gripping, and the finger-pieces, initially just two iron spurs, had become a slot that could be used to secure objects. He sometimes thought such cleverness was in reality very stupid, because it attracted attention – but he liked having two hands.
Greencoat looked back at Jamie’s disfigured face. ‘Were you a gunner?’ he asked.
He’d seen the like before, then. Jamie shook his head. ‘Pistol misfired.’ He remembered Naseby – how he’d dismounted, laid the pistol across his saddle and sighted along it at the fleeing royalists. He did not remember the explosion – only waking, blind in a horror of pain, with John Wildman leaning over him and saying, ‘Easy, easy!’
‘Not just a blacksmith, then,’ remarked Greencoat.
Jamie met the other man’s eyes. ‘I enlisted to fight for our liberties. You need not tell me we’ve not won them. I’ve no wish to fight more, I swear it to you before God.’
Greencoat snorted. ‘“The multitude now have found their error, and repent that e’er they trusted to a Parliament.”’
Jamie blinked. He’d heard those lines before, though he couldn’t remember where.
‘Well,’ said Greencoat, turning to his followers. ‘It seems we’re in no immediate danger, but ’twould be better to depart. Go fetch your dinners, gentlemen. We’ll finish our supper on the road.’
There was a chorus of groans.
‘What?’ demanded Greencoat. ‘You thought we might stop the night? Here on the London road? Count yourselves lucky to have hot food in your bellies!’ He turned back to Jamie. ‘That’s your horse there?’
Jamie looked at the dappled gelding still held by the ostler. ‘It was Barker’s,’ he said. ‘He took mine.’
Greencoat’s eyebrows rose, and he went over to the horse and picked up the saddlebags sitting beside it. He undid the buckles and shook out the contents into the mud of the yard: a couple of shirts, some stockings, a book. He picked up the book, then grimaced and tossed it down again: it was the Bible. Jamie was mildly shocked at this contemptuous treatment of the Bible – though he suspected that Barker’s own use of it was just as bad. He had never seen the lieutenant read that book, and it was likely that its presence in the luggage was meant to impress his masters.
‘He kept the dispatches on his person,’ Jamie said. ‘And the money.’
Greencoat nodded resignedly. ‘Put that back on the horse,’ he ordered the ostler, indicating the saddle. ‘We’ll take the beast.’ He came back to Jamie and inspected him a moment. ‘Take off your coat.’
Jamie at once began to slip it off, and the man who’d held him finally let go to allow it. Greencoat took the garment and draped it over an arm. Jamie had no doubt that an Army coat would be very useful to a party of fugitives, but it seemed a good exchange for his life.
‘Your sword, too,’ said Greencoat, ‘and your purse.’ Jamie unbuckled his belt and handed it over, sword and purse still attached.
‘My thanks,’ said Greencoat, quirking another smile. ‘Go in peace, and sin no more!’
Ten minutes later the cavaliers were gone, riding out of the innyard into the growing darkness. There were, Jamie saw, fifteen of them in all, with nineteen horses and a mule; three of the men were double-mounted to leave horses free to carry supplies. They had a quantity of these – sacks of grain, barrels of beer; a couple of live chickens hanging upside down from a pack saddle. They were a foraging party, clearly, and intended to bring those goods back into Colchester under cover of darkness. He hadn’t asked where they were going, though. The men had left him horseless and penniless in the middle of nowhere – but they’d left him alive. He was grateful, and would prefer not to imagine facing them again on a battlefield.
A man in an apron emerged from the inn and scowled at the departing royalists. ‘God damn them!’ he exclaimed bitterly. He turned the scowl on Jamie. ‘If you and your friend hadn’t come, they might at least have left the crockery! God damn you all, King and Parliament!’
Jamie made a placating gesture. It was almost dark now, and the exhaustion he’d felt back in
Chelmsford had crashed down overwhelmingly. His ribs and arms burned with bruises he’d collected from Greencoat’s men and hadn’t noticed while his life hung in the balance; his saddle-sore muscles ached miserably. He felt that at any moment he might break down shamefully in tears, and he longed for somewhere quiet to lie down. ‘Sir, may I have a bed for the night?’ he asked, unable to think of any better way to come at the question.
The innkeeper spat. ‘And are you able to pay for it? Nay, for they took your money! How am I even to serve my guests now, with scarce a dish to hold the meat? Ah, but I have no guests, nor am like to, with the roads full of soldiers! God damn you all! How am I to replace what I’ve lost?’
‘Sir,’ said Jamie, ashamed of the roughness in his voice, but desperate enough to continue anyway, ‘Give me a bed for the night, and I’ll give you work to the value of it, I swear.’
The innkeeper glowered at him a moment, then spat again. ‘You’re a blacksmith, you told them. Can you forge me some good strong bolts for my doors? Very well. You may have a bed for a night, and something from the kitchen, though those rogues have left little enough behind. When your friends come, you be sure to tell them that I’ve been robbed, and I never served the malignants willingly!’
A little later, lying down in the quiet of an upstairs room with a slab of stale bread, Jamie began to shake. If he closed his eye he saw Barker’s face convulsed in hatred, and Greencoat’s sword raised. He imagined Lucy in London, smiling as she wrote him a letter. Would anyone in the Army even have bothered to let her know that he was dead?
For the first time, he wondered whether his reconciliation with his brother might provide a means of escape. Lucy would be safe if she gave up unlicensed printing and moved to Lincolnshire. Would she be willing, though, to leave London? Would his family take her in? Jamie could imagine his father’s disdain. He fell asleep, muzzily trying to imagine what Lucy would say to it.
When the soldiers arrived from Colchester about noon the following day, he was at work. The innkeeper had a sort of small forge, as did many of his kind – a coal stove with a bellows, with an iron plate hammered on to a log for an anvil. It was good for shaping horseshoes, and not much else. Jamie had, after considerable effort, cajoled the fire into producing enough heat to let him beat out some door bolts and bolt-plates, but it was fiddly work. Even his best efforts got the iron only just hot enough to be malleable; there was only one hammer, the tongs didn’t grip properly, and he was trying to shape the bolts from a broken pitchfork and the plates from an old piece of wheel-cladding. He did, however, manage an ugly but sturdy improvisation, and he was squinting over the last bolt-plate when the innkeeper came in cringing. ‘Here he is, sirs!’ he cried. ‘He’ll bear witness for me!’
A Corruptible Crown Page 5
