He washed the soot off his hands and face with water from the quenching barrel, then followed Towlend’s suggestion and set out along the riverbank. He felt heavy and numb; his mind was still at the forge, repeating the steps he had taken to repair a broken axle.
When he came to a bridge he stopped, then sat down on the low wall and stared at the water. He thought of Lucy smiling up at him, then remembered her tear-streaked face after their quarrel. He told himself that she’d forgiven him, but her letter seemed remote and ineffectual beside the memory of her tears. He’d heard nothing from her for weeks. That was only to be expected, while the regiment was on the move, but it left her last words to him hanging in a void, with the meaning slowly leaching away from them. He thought again of the starving women and children at Colchester, and of the one who’d run naked and weeping from the soldiers’ jeers. A huge unformed anger seized him: he, who had gone to war for the sake of justice for the oppressed, had become one of the oppressors. He clutched the wall with both hands. The iron brace rang on the stone; he looked down at it in sudden loathing, then fumbled loose the catch and wrenched it off.
Almost he hurled it into the river – but his fingers remembered all the finicky work he’d put into it. He sat there, holding the thing, unable either to throw it away or put it back on – then looked up to see Isaiah Barker riding over the bridge.
He hadn’t for a moment forgotten that the lieutenant had been posted to Pontefract. It had troubled him; he had given his word not to seek Barker out or to challenge him, but he’d doubted his own restraint if they ever again met face to face. Barker obviously doubted that as well. When he saw Jamie he reined in his horse sharply, his face paling. Jamie got to his feet.
Barker abruptly clapped his heels to his horse’s sides; the animal snorted in alarm and broke into a gallop. Jamie shouted in wordless rage as horse and rider plunged past, then hurled his iron brace at Barker’s retreating back. The brace hit, and Barker gave a yelp, but hunched over in the saddle and galloped on, townspeople and off-duty soldiers scattering before him with cries of indignation.
Jamie ran after him a few steps, then gave up and turned back. He searched the dirty street until he found the brace. It was covered in dung, but undamaged, and he took it down to the river, rinsed it off, and dried it carefully on his coat. His heart was beating fast, and he was aware of a surge of energy that felt almost like happiness – how the rascal had run!
There were flecks of rust on the brace, particularly about the hinge and pin, which were hard to dry. He should get some grease on it and let it soak in awhile before he put it on again. He slipped it into his pocket and headed back to the forge.
Towlend was gone, but Philibert Bailey was keeping an eye on the forge. He was seated comfortably on a tussock with his back against a wagon wheel, eating bread and cheese. He greeted Jamie with a smile, waving his bit of bread. ‘Want a bite? There’s a whole loaf, indoors!’
Jamie went into the forge and found the bread. It was cheat bread, the coarsest variety, made of rye and pease with a generous helping of chaff and mill grit – but it was fresh, and there was more cheese as well, only slightly green. He helped himself and came outdoors to sit with Philibert.
‘Sam Towlend fetched it,’ Philibert said, then grinned. ‘He managed on his own somehow.’
Shopkeepers were understandably reluctant to accept the promissory ‘tickets’ which were all the Army could usually offer them by way of payment; Towlend normally had more success at overcoming that reluctance when Jamie hulked in the background. Jamie nibbled the bread – cautiously, because of the mill grit – then swallowed. ‘You may be off, if you wish,’ he told Philibert. ‘I’ll stay here the afternoon.’
Philibert shook his head. ‘I’ve no wish to be off very far.’ He waved an arm at the river. ‘I’ve a mind to see if I can get us some fish for supper!’
Jamie was sitting against the wagon wheel a little while later, re-reading Lucy’s letters while Philibert fished, when half a dozen soldiers marched up. Their coats were not the New Model’s red, but a mish-mash of colours: they were garrison soldiers – Cholmley’s men. Jamie saw them making their way across the church green towards the forge; mildly puzzled, he folded the letters and got up.
‘There he is!’ cried one who wore an officer’s sash. The whole party ran toward him, drawing swords and pistols.
Jamie hurriedly shoved the letters into his coat pocket – and one of the pistols went off. There was a sudden burning pain in his upper right arm; he staggered back in confusion and disbelief.
‘Hold there!’ yelled the officer, and the whole party closed round him. ‘James Hudson? You’re under arrest!’
Behind their backs he could see Philibert running towards them. He waved him back, and found another pistol aimed at his head. He put both hands in the air. His arm was burning, and his sleeve was wet. ‘What’s this?’ he demanded furiously.
The officer slapped him across the face. ‘No insolence!’ he ordered. ‘Tom, Jack, get his pistol!’
One of the men promptly seized Jamie’s arms and twisted them behind his back; Jamie cried out as the injured arm sent out a fresh blaze of pain. The other man searched his pockets, fishing out the letters and the greasy iron brace. He tossed them aside; the letters fluttered in the light breeze and began to blow away across the yard. Jamie cried out again, tried to struggle free and chase them, then gave up and stood gasping, defeated by the pain in his arm.
‘Where’s the pistol?’ demanded the officer.
‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Jamie. ‘What pistol? My wife’s letters!’
‘You went for your pistol!’
‘I have no pistol! I’ve not touched one since I was maimed at Naseby! Those are my wife’s letters!’
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. The officer stooped and picked up the brace, looked at Jamie, then tossed it aside. He wiped his fingers nervously on his trousers.
‘God damn!’ said the one holding Jamie’s arms. ‘You hit him. He’s bleeding.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ ordered the officer. ‘Headquarters can deal with it. March!’
They marched Jamie off with a man holding each arm. He looked back repeatedly; the letters were scattered around the wagons, and Philibert had disappeared.
When they reached the churchyard gate, however, Philibert reappeared with eight or nine others of the regiment. ‘There!’ he yelled triumphantly, pointing at Jamie and his captors.
Cholmley’s men halted, bunching together protectively as the newcomers advanced on them. ‘Give way!’ cried the officer, sounding nervous now. ‘We are arresting this man for an attack on one of our officers!’
‘You sons of whores!’ exclaimed Philibert indignantly. ‘Look what you’ve done! He’s hurt!’
The blood was by this stage dripping from Jamie’s hand, and he was feeling faint and queasy; the situation, however, was now perfectly clear to him. ‘I did not attack Lieutenant Barker,’ he declared, with savage deliberation. ‘The coward saw me and ran away. You are arresting me on a false charge. Colonel Rainsborough should know of this.’
‘You’re coming with us!’ exclaimed the officer determinedly, hand on his sword-hilt.
‘God have mercy!’ Jamie snarled in disgust, ‘I’d have come at request! Philibert, tell the colonel!’
‘Aye,’ agreed Philibert, and ran off.
The men he’d summoned, however, remained. ‘You’ve no right to arrest him,’ said one. ‘He’s none of yours.’
‘Get out of our way!’ replied the officer.
Jamie closed his eyes; his head was swimming. He felt that it was up to him to stop this before swords were drawn, but he had no idea how. ‘For God’s dear love,’ he said desperately, ‘let’s not stand wrangling in the street! My arm hurts!’
There was a moment’s silence, and then one of Rainsborough’s men said decisively, ‘He should see a surgeon.’
Rather to Jamie’s surprise, the garrison officer abruptly
gave way and agreed. Perhaps he saw the surgeon as a compromise, or perhaps his nerve failed. The whole party marched down the road to the riverside warehouse which Rainsborough’s regiment had designated a hospital.
There were only a few patients at present, but there was a surgeon on duty. When the procession barged in, he tried to send it out. Cholmley’s officer doggedly refused to leave ‘the prisoner’, and so Rainsborough’s men refused as well. ‘For Christ’s sake, then,’ the surgeon said irritably, ‘wait outside! We have sick here!’ He bundled them out the door, then helped Jamie off with his coat and shirt and examined the wound.
It was a deep, angry gash along the upper right forearm and it was still bleeding freely – but the sight of it filled Jamie with huge relief. The bullet hadn’t lodged in his flesh, to be dug out, leaving splinters of lead and bone to fester and rot. It was only a graze. He would heal.
The surgeon was stitching the wound when there was a commotion at the door, and then Rainsborough stalked in, pale with anger, eyes dangerously bright. He paused at the sight of Jamie sitting shirtless and blood-smeared, and cast a look of question at the surgeon.
‘A graze from a pistol shot,’ said the surgeon, tying off the last stitch. ‘With God’s blessing it should mend.’
‘I thank God for it,’ said Rainsborough. ‘Mr Hudson. Pray tell me what occurred.’
Jamie drew a deep breath and described his encounter with Barker at the bridge, followed by the arrest by the garrison.
‘God give me patience!’ Rainsborough exclaimed, striking the heel of one hand against the palm of the other. ‘It is not to be borne! An armed band sent to seize one of my men, without the least enquiry made, no reference to the law, no word to me – I’ll have him cashiered!’
There was another disturbance; a man with a captain’s sash came in, closely followed by the officer who’d made the arrest. Rainsborough turned on the first before he could say a word. ‘How dare you, sir? How dare you?’
‘I regret that your man was injured,’ the captain said sullenly. ‘The lieutenant believed he was on the point of drawing a pistol. But let us be clear: your man had attacked one of our officers first!’
‘Who says so?’ demanded Rainsborough. ‘Lieutenant Barker?’
The captain blinked, then nodded cautiously.
‘Lieutenant Barker,’ Rainsborough said angrily, ‘quarrelled with Mr Hudson back in Colchester, lost the duel, and then, unable to stomach defeat, went roundabout to London and assailed Mr Hudson’s wife. He says Mr Hudson attacked him?’
The captain scowled. ‘I know naught of this.’ His tone said he didn’t believe any of it, either.
‘Do you not? And yet, it was notorious at Colchester! Barker confessed it, and Commissary-General Ireton dismissed him for it.’
This, finally, shook the captain. ‘He confessed it?’
‘He went to Mrs Hudson, an honest gentlewoman, and told her, falsely, that her husband was hurt near to death and calling for her. He claims it was but a jest, and since she was too wise to do as he wished and go off with him, he was given no punishment worse than dismissal. It is open and acknowledged, I say; if you scorn to take my word, you may ask your own Colonel Cholmley, for I’ve no doubt that Ireton told him of it! It is scarce surprising that when Barker saw the man he’d wronged on Doncaster bridge, he set heels to his horse and fled in great haste – but that you should simply take his word for it that he’d been attacked, and order violence against a fellow soldier in his defence, without first making the slightest effort either to establish the truth or to settle the matter peaceably – that I should never have believed of any officer in this Army!’
‘He was bruised and terrified!’ exclaimed the captain. ‘He said he was in fear for his life, that this man Hudson had sworn to kill him, and he durst not ride back to Pontefract while his enemy was at large and the town full of his enemy’s friends! I thought I was bound to act, to secure the dispatches!’
‘And therefore sent six men with swords and pistols against one unarmed blacksmith?’ demanded Rainsborough. ‘The wicked flee where no man pursues. Mr Hudson had in fact sworn, at my insistence, not to seek Barker out or to challenge him – and for that forbearance he has bled!’
‘I’m sorry your man was hurt!’ protested the captain, sweating now. ‘Lieutenant Perry misjudged . . .’
‘No more of that!’ cried Rainsborough. ‘I’ll not hear such baseness, to blame your lieutenant the instant it’s clear that the order you gave him was wrong! You, sir, sent him out, with such force, and, I’ve no doubt, orders to act swiftly against a villain, knowing full well that Mr Hudson is my man . . .’
‘Aye, I did know that!’ the captain wailed. ‘And for that reason I thought I was bound to act swiftly, before you could interfere!’
‘And also, it seems, before any magistrate could interfere!’ Rainsborough replied. ‘Pray, do you fancy yourself king, to order the arrest of a free-born gentleman without warrant? You have erred, sir; you have flouted the law, civil and military both, and by God I will see you punished for it! Where is Lieutenant Barker?’
‘Rid back to Pontefract,’ said the captain. ‘I . . . he abused me! He lied to me! Had I known the circumstances, I . . .’
Rainsborough gave an explosive snort of contempt, and swept a hand in dismissal. ‘Out! I’ll not hear you longer!’
It was a measure of his force of character that the captain of Doncaster’s garrison slunk out at once, head low and shoulders hunched as though he’d been whipped. Rainsborough drew a deep breath and turned back to Jamie. ‘Let me see,’ he said, his tone suddenly gentle. He took Jamie’s wrist and inspected the freshly stitched gash on his upper arm, then looked into his face with sober attention.
‘Forgive me,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have demanded justice against that knave Barker before, and I should have recollected that the man had been sent here. I obliged you to leave the matter in my hands, and then negligently let it slip. I can only beg your pardon.’
Jamie had no idea how to respond. Rainsborough commanded a thousand men, and his position as the Army’s highest ranking Leveller meant that he was engaged in politics at the highest level. Jamie had never expected him to devote himself to the affairs of a blacksmith. He gave an awkward shrug with the shoulder of the uninjured arm.
‘You asked me for your discharge from this Army,’ Rainsborough went on. ‘I, knowing not how to replace you, refused, though I had seen that your heart was growing estranged from us . . .’
‘No, sir,’ Jamie managed breathlessly. ‘Not from you, nor this regiment, nor The Agreement. It’s only that what we wrought at Colchester struck me to the heart. And my wife, sir, has been left alone and unprotected in London, where you know our friends are not safe.’
Rainsborough sighed. ‘However that be, you asked me for your discharge, and I, like a hypocrite, refused it, though I have cried out to all my support for The Agreement’s demand that no man should be constrained to fight against his will. Well, that throve as it deserved: you will now be so odious to Cholmley’s faction that I dare not keep you, besides you’ll be unable to work for at least a fortnight. You may have your discharge, Mr Hudson. I will draw up the papers this evening, and see to it that you have money to support you on your journey back to London.’
Jamie stared, unable to believe it. Rainsborough’s changeable face became stern, and he added, ‘Let Lieutenant Barker alone. If you fight him now, his masters will claim it justifies their defence of him, and it will strengthen their hands. Leave him alone, and I will deal with him as with them.’
Jamie abruptly understood that the colonel meant to use the incident as a lever to dislodge Cholmley. The prospect of getting away, though, was so glorious that he was perfectly willing to leave Barker alone – and he suspected that, this time, the lieutenant would be punished. If that garrison captain were cashiered, he’d make sure that the cause of it suffered something worse.
The strange thing was, he was convinced t
hat this time Barker hadn’t even lied. He’d believed what he told the captain: he had genuinely feared for his life. He’d attacked Lucy because he was afraid to face Jamie again. He’d believed he could dodge responsibility for whatever it was he’d had in mind for her, and her trip to Colchester had left him exposed and terrified.
‘I am content to leave him,’ Jamie whispered. ‘I’d sooner see my wife in London than that knave in Pontefract.’
The colonel’s face softened again. ‘Then go home to your lovely wife, Mr Hudson. You have spent blood enough for the cause; in future, you can help her to spend ink, and I hope you may both be happy.’
The discharge papers arrived at the forge that evening. Jamie was sitting by the fire with Sam Towlend, Philibert Bailey and the wagon-driver, when a regimental messenger delivered a letter formally stating that he was being discharged wounded, together with twenty shillings – a whole pound! – and a ticket for the rest of his arrears of pay. He fully expected the latter to be worthless, but its inclusion reinforced the fact that this was an honourable discharge. He read the letter over and over again by candlelight, unable to believe it, then folded it carefully.
The others were watching him, Towlend with misgiving, Philibert and the driver with envy. Jamie tried to suppress a feeling of guilt at abandoning them. ‘He said what passed today would make me odious to Cholmley’s faction,’ he said defensively, ‘besides that I’ll not be able to work till my arm’s healed.’
Sam sighed. ‘No doubt he’s right. And, to speak truth, I feared for your health if we were put to another long siege, this time in winter. But I pray God we can get another smith soon!’
Philibert also sighed, then took Jamie’s good hand and shook it firmly. ‘I wish you all good fortune! We must give you a proper send-off. Tomorrow night, perhaps, when your arm’s less sore.’
There were no celebrations the following night, though. Very early next morning Jamie was drowsing on his bedroll, unable to sleep properly because of the pain in his arm, when he was woken by a sudden burst of shouting from somewhere in the town. The noise wasn’t from nearby, but the horror in it made him sit up, listening intently. Drums sounded, and then the bells of the neighbouring church began to clamour the alarm. Jamie got up and pulled his boots on, clumsily because of his sore arm. The others had begun to stir and sit up, but he didn’t wait for them. He draped his coat over his shoulders and headed out to see what the matter was.
A Corruptible Crown Page 20
