A Corruptible Crown

by Gillian Bradshaw

  There was a silence. Barker started to speak, stopped, then spat, ‘A pity you didn’t think of that at the time!’

  ‘I thought only of getting to the horses and away,’ Jamie agreed. ‘They were standing in the yard. That alone might well have saved us both. Sir, this is fruitless. I’ve said how I regard your conduct, and you have demanded satisfaction. I am here to give it you.’ He took off his coat and hat and handed them to Bailey.

  Barker stood still, staring, and Jamie saw that the lieutenant was afraid of him. He felt a warm rush of pleasure.

  Lieutenant Russell came over and looked earnestly into Jamie’s face. ‘Sir, if you will not be reconciled, then I ask you, for the sake of our common service, to let it end at first blood. The malignants would be overjoyed to see us killing one another!’

  It was Jamie’s right, as the man challenged, to say whether the duel should continue to the death or end at some earlier point. He hesitated only a moment. He already had what he wanted: the sneer wiped off Barker’s face. ‘Very well. For the sake of our common service I am content to halt at first blood.’

  Barker’s face lit with relief, then reddened. He pulled off his coat and gave it to Russell, then unbuckled his sword belt, drew the weapon, and tossed the belt aside.

  Jamie took off his own sword belt, his maimed hand clumsy on the buckle, and drew the borrowed rapier. Still barefoot, he strode to the centre of the barn, Bailey and Russell following with the lanterns. The light of dawn which now shone under the eaves was half-drowned by the rain, and insufficient for a duel.

  There was the ritual inspection of the swords; the seconds marked out the ground, then stood aside. Jamie and Barker faced one another, swords in the guard position. ‘On my count, gentlemen,’ said Russell. ‘One, two, three.’

  There was a trick Jamie’s fencing master had taught him long ago, a way of catching and binding an opponent’s blade. If you did it right, it snatched the weapon clean out of his hand. You had to have a strong arm to make it work, but if you did have the strength it was hard to defend against even if you knew it was coming. Jamie’s forge-trained arms had more than enough strength, and Barker had not the least idea it was coming. An instant after Russell said three, his sword was on the ground and he was staring at Jamie in horror. Jamie lifted the rapier and nicked the other man’s chin. Barker leapt back, clapping a hand to his face. Jamie held the rapier up in the lamplight, letting both seconds see the shining red droplet on the tip.

  ‘First blood!’ cried Bailey exultantly. ‘Oh, well done, well done!’

  ‘Isaiah,’ Russell said to his friend, a little breathlessly, ‘honour is satisfied. Will you call pax?’

  Barker’s eyes, dark and gleaming with hatred, fixed on Jamie. Then he nodded. He bent, retrieved his sword, and without another word went back to his horse.

  Bailey was grinning when he and Jamie trudged back through the rain in the wake of the horsemen. ‘That was pretty!’ he said softly. ‘Oh, that was worth a drenching! Proud popinjay from headquarters, and he was out in one stroke!’

  Jamie grinned back. Now that it was over, he felt buoyant, light as air. He had repaid Barker for his contempt, but he’d done no hurt worth Ireton’s attention. ‘It turned out well, thank God,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mr Bailey, for your help.’

  Bailey grinned again and slapped his shoulder. ‘Call me Philibert.’

  There had been no hint of interference with the duel. Jamie concluded that he’d been mistaken about Towlend. As they squelched onward, however, they noticed a couple of horsemen trotting toward them. They drew nearer, and Jamie recognized one of them as a member of Rainsborough’s staff.

  ‘Mr Hudson!’ said the staff officer irritably. ‘We are here to arrest you for duelling!’

  Philibert laughed. ‘You’re too late, sir! It’s all over with – the other fellow was out in one stroke!’

  ‘You’re under arrest, too, Philibert Bailey!’ snapped the officer, and Philibert stopped grinning.

  It was mid-morning by the time they got back to the camp. Rainsborough was in his tent, reading reports. He set the papers down when his aide led in the dripping duellists.

  The staff officer saluted. ‘Sir, I am sorry to say we didn’t find the place in time – but Mr Bailey says there was no harm done.’

  Rainsborough looked surprised. ‘You made peace?’ he asked Jamie.

  Jamie shook his head. ‘We ended it at first blood. Lieutenant Ruh – my opponent’s second asked it, in respect of our common service.’ No point in betraying the other parties to the duel. ‘I agreed.’

  Rainsborough let out a breath in relief. His eyes flicked over Jamie, noting the absence of blood. ‘How is Lieutenant Barker?’

  ‘I expect he’s had worse cuts shaving.’

  Rainsborough relaxed. ‘Thank God for that! This is better than I feared – but still, it was ill done, Mr Hudson. A house divided against itself cannot stand.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Philibert, ‘that should be said to Barker. He was the challenger. Jamie was willing to make peace, but this Barker would accept nothing but that Jamie should beg his pardon for being abandoned to the enemy. He is a great enemy to our cause, too. All along the road he reviled us, knowing that Jamie was under his orders and bound to endure it. He mocked Major Wildman in particular, saying he sues to sit in the window of the Fleet and beg. He boasted, too, that at Ware he gathered up copies of The Agreement to be burned.’

  Rainsborough, as everyone knew, had been at Ware: he had tried to present a copy of The Agreement of the People to Lord General Fairfax, and had been brushed aside. He sat up straight again, his eyes flashing. He glanced at Jamie for confirmation, then set his teeth.

  ‘Jamie disarmed him at the first stroke,’ said Philibert softly.

  Jamie saw that there would be no punishment. The colonel was not going to punish a man for doing what he would like to have done himself.

  ‘Even so!’ Rainsborough said half-heartedly, ‘You should not have fought. I have given My Lord General and the Commissary-General my word of honour that until this storm is past, I will set our disagreements aside and be obedient to their orders. We cannot afford to fight among ourselves. If we lose this new war, Charles Stuart will ascend his throne again, and our hopes and our people will be utterly undone.’ Then the colonel smiled. ‘However, since there’s no harm done, we’ll let the matter be.’

  Six

  Lucy was hard at work printing Elizabeth Alkin’s Impartial Scout when Mary Overton hurried in, leading a stranger.

  It was the middle of July, and Lucy was in her new printworks. This was a single damp room in a dark, fish-scented building, on Thames Street near Billingsgate Fishmarket. Wat’s Uncle Simmon – a lanky, simple-minded young man with stringy hair and a tendency to breathe through his mouth – was sliding the bed of the press in and out while Lucy turned the handle of the screw and Wat inked. It was heavy, tedious work, and Lucy was glad of an interruption – until she saw the look on Mary’s face.

  Mary hurried up and hugged her. ‘Be brave!’ she said. ‘This gentleman is come from Colchester. He says your husband is hurt.’

  Lucy felt no emotion that she could identify – only a sense that the whole world had gone still, leaving each detail around her unnaturally clear and distinct. She noticed an ink stain on Mary’s cap; the gasp of alarm from Wat and the snuffle from Simmon; the cry of a vendor outside in the road; the surprised stare of the man from Colchester. He was a soldier, a dark round-faced man in mud-flecked boots and breeches.

  ‘What happened?’ Lucy asked him.

  The soldier stopped staring with an uneasy smile. ‘There was a skirmish two days gone. The malignants had sent up one of their great guns, a drake, in the tower of St John’s, hard by the south gate. They fired upon our people and did great slaughter, and My Lord General wanted it brought down. Your husband was working on the approaches, crafting and fitting braces for the trenches, when a shot fell among the timbers nearby. He was much hurt by the
splinters. It’s feared he may not live. He is asking for you.’

  Lucy swallowed, unable to find words. The soldier smirked and said, ‘I do not wonder that he longs to see you. I had not thought you would be so fair.’

  She felt a sudden savage loathing for him: that he could smile and say that, after telling her that Jamie might be dying! She tucked her ink-stained hands under her arms to stop herself from hitting him.

  ‘I came hither to fetch you to him,’ the soldier told her.

  ‘I thank you, sir,’ Lucy said unsteadily. ‘You are his friend?’

  Another uneasy smirk. ‘Aye. My name is Philip Bailey. Perhaps he has spoken of me, in his letters?’

  Lucy shook her head. She’d had two letters from Jamie since he was sent to Colchester, but they’d contained very little about his life there. He’d asked instead about people in London – and in the second one he’d also wanted to know all about her new printing press.

  Bailey looked disappointed. ‘Well, I am his good friend, and I promised him I would fetch you from London. I have a good horse at The Bell at Bishopsgate. If you come with me now, we can be in Brentwood by nightfall, and at Colchester tomorrow.’

  Lucy swallowed and cast a despairing look at her press. The sheet they were printing would be the fourth in the first edition of Mrs Alkin’s newsbook. If she abandoned it, she abandoned the previous three days’ work – together with the wages she’d paid Simmon and Wat, and the money she’d laid out on paper and ink. She didn’t have anything left over to replace that expenditure – and if she ran off now, would Mrs Alkin give her credit, and employ her again? It seemed unlikely.

  Jamie was hurt, and asking for her. Torn by splinters cast by cannon-shot. Her imagination conjured a horrible ruin of blood, lying upon a rough pallet and whispering her name. Her heart was still numb, but her eyes began to ache with tears.

  Mary caught her arm. ‘Go,’ she ordered. ‘I will see to things here.’

  ‘But The Moderate . . .’ began Lucy.

  ‘Dick will get help from his friends,’ Mary said firmly. ‘You must go to your husband.’

  Bailey took her straight to the inn where he had stabled his horse. There was no point fetching baggage, he told her, since he had no pack animal. ‘You’ll ride behind me,’ he said. ‘You’ve done that before?’

  She nodded. Women usually rode pillion, and she’d travelled all the way to London behind a cousin’s servant. She didn’t like it – it was uncomfortable, and doubly disagreeable if the man in front was unpleasant – but it didn’t frighten her.

  ‘Brave girl!’ said Bailey approvingly. He put an arm around her for a hug. It should have been companionable and comforting, but wasn’t. His hand eagerly felt her breasts. She stopped short and jerked away – then pretended that she only wanted to get out of the way of some traffic. He smirked at her, and she looked quickly away, swallowing her outrage. He’d ridden all the way from Colchester to fetch her to Jamie; she ought to be grateful.

  Bailey’s horse was a tall, powerful-looking grey stallion. When the ostler led it out into the inn yard to saddle it, it laid its ears back and showed the whites of its eyes. Lucy looked back at it unhappily. She didn’t like high-strung horses, and there was no pillion cushion behind the saddle. She would have to perch uncomfortably on the animal’s bare back. Bailey offered to lift her up.

  She drew back, pulling her arms against herself protectively and shaking her head. He raised his eyebrows, but mounted up, then offered her a hand. She took it reluctantly, got a foot into the stirrup, and scrambled up on to the horse’s rump. The horse promptly side-stepped, tossing its head and snorting angrily. Bailey grinned when she grabbed his shoulder to stay on; he turned in the saddle and put an arm around her waist. His hand fumbled at her thighs. She settled herself sideways, took hold of Bailey’s belt, and eased his arm away. Bailey grinned at her over his shoulder. ‘I shall be the envy of every man that sees us,’ he told her, ‘with such a pretty thing clinging to my tail!’

  She did not reply. She was again battling the impulse to hit him. As they clattered out of the inn yard, she tried to reason with her dislike. The man was Jamie’s friend, and he was doing her a kindness. She should not hate him because he paid her inappropriate compliments and groped her. There were plenty of men who felt compelled to play the gallant with every pretty woman they met, and meant nothing by it. She suspected that the real root of her dislike was the fact that he’d brought her such terrible news.

  She tried to suppress the wretched, selfish, sinful thought that the terrible news had come at the worst possible time. Even if Mary was able to satisfy Mrs Alkin, there was no way she’d have the time to search out other customers for Lucy’s press, a matter of some urgency if the business was to be secure. How, she wondered angrily, could she think of such a thing when Jamie might be dying?

  It was a grey afternoon; the roads were ankle-deep in mud, and the clouds threatened more rain. The heavy traffic was even worse than usual as people swerved about the road trying to avoid the deepest puddles, and at first Bailey had to give all his attention to his horse, which snorted and put its ears back at every barking dog or fluttering chicken. Lucy sat in a daze, struggling to understand how her husband of six months could be snatched away before she’d even had the chance to get to know him. Her eyes began to ache again and she swallowed repeatedly. She told herself she would not cry here on the public street, where everyone could see her – particularly when Bailey might try to comfort her.

  As they left London behind the way became less crowded, and eventually Bailey felt free to grin at her over his shoulder. ‘You are not what I expected for James Hudson’s wife,’ he told her. ‘I expected a pocky-faced inkster like your friend.’

  Lucy stiffened, shocked. ‘Mary Overton is a saint! Even now she’s doing my work, unpaid, so that I can come with you! How can you speak of her like that?’

  Bailey shrugged. ‘Because she’s a pocky-faced inkster, aye? I said naught regarding her character!’ He smirked. ‘I thought you would be another such. Your husband is no beauty, and no rich man neither. How did he win himself such a pretty little black-eyed poppet?’

  Lucy set her teeth. He was Jamie’s friend, she told herself again, and as such he ought to be her friend too.

  Perhaps, though, he was not really a good friend of Jamie. Now she thought of it, it seemed unlikely that he was more than an acquaintance: Jamie had only been in his new regiment a few weeks. ‘Have you known Jamie long?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, aye!’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘You served with him before he joined Colonel Rainsborough’s regiment, then?’

  Bailey hesitated. ‘We were together in the war. This is dull talk; how—’

  ‘Were you with him in Colonel Okey’s regiment?’ Lucy asked – then bit her lip: that was a stupid question. Jamie had moved between regiments, but blacksmiths were unusual. If Bailey had been one of Okey’s dragoons he’d be one still – but she was sure that Jamie would have mentioned it if his old regiment was at Colchester. He would have wanted her to pass on news of old friends to John Wildman, who’d been one of Okey’s captains. Bailey must have been in some other regiment.

  ‘Aye,’ said Bailey casually, surprising her. ‘This is dull talk, and you never answered my question.’

  Lucy frowned. ‘What question?’

  ‘Why, how did Cyclops Hudson get himself such a beautiful wife?’

  ‘He hates that name!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘He’s used to it,’ said Bailey, with another smirk. ‘And it’s apt.’

  She frowned. She could not believe that this smirking scoffer was Jamie’s ‘good friend’. ‘Sir, I confess I’m puzzled. You say you’re one of Colonel Okey’s men, and I thought they were not at Colchester.’

  He glanced back uncomfortably. ‘Nay!’ he said, after an awkward pause. ‘I never said I was one of Colonel Okey’s. I said I knew your husband then.’

  ‘Of what reg
iment are you then?’

  Bailey hesitated again, and she was suddenly certain that he’d been lying to her. She regarded that conviction with bewilderment: why would he lie?

  ‘Of the Lord General’s Horse,’ Bailey told her.

  Jamie had never mentioned any friends in Lord Fairfax’s own regiment. Of course, he hadn’t told her much about his time in the Army, but John Wildman had been more talkative, and from him she’d gained the impression that elite cavalry, like Lord Fairfax’s men, didn’t mix much with lowly dragoons, like Colonel Okey’s – though the Levellers of different regiments had worked together regularly. ‘How did you come to know Jamie?’

  ‘He did some blacksmithing for me, and we struck up an acquaintance.’

  Lucy felt giddy. ‘Sir. I know not why you would make sport of me, to tell me lies, but I beg you to stop it!’

  Bailey drew rein sharply and turned in the saddle. Suddenly frightened, she let go of his belt, grabbed the cantle of the saddle, and slid off the horse.

  He stared down at her a moment, then forced a smile. ‘Not so used to riding as you thought, eh?’ he asked brightly, and held his hand out to help her up.

  She didn’t take it. ‘Jamie was not a blacksmith when he was in Colonel Okey’s regiment! You cannot have met him that way!’

  He frowned. ‘I . . . he . . . it was a slip of the tongue, girl! He’s a blacksmith now. Come, we waste time by this!’

  Still she didn’t take his hand. There was something wrong with Bailey’s account of himself, she was sure of it. ‘Tell me first when and where you met my husband!’

  ‘I left him dying!’ replied Bailey. ‘I swore to him I would fetch his wife – and you would have me recount the whole history of my dealings with him before you’ll come?’

  ‘Sir, I never saw you in all my life before today! You say you are my husband’s good friend, but how should I know that’s true? You’ve not spoken as his friend would!’

  ‘Damn you for a cold-hearted bitch!’ shouted Bailey, his face going red with anger. ‘Come here!’