by Leah Fleming
‘I suppose you require quartering? You’re not the first to demand such. There are few other hovels in this village which are not o’erspilling with children. Your men can lie in the barns and sleep on the straw in the cattle stalls…’
‘And no doubt you will invite myself and my lieutenant to bide within these walls and guard your virtue? Such is the usual custom. But first send your maid with water so that I may wash away the grime. I stink of the forest and must make myself worthy of the elegant company which shines before me in the sunshine.’
‘You mock me, sire, and it is unworthy of you. I am but a poor widow with a child to protect. I have little appetite for elegance, having eaten only vegetables and stew pot fare these past months. Take what you must but I can offer no indulgences here. I have a child who is sickly and needs to eat. Permit me to go to her at once for she will be afeared by your presence.’
‘Do not let me delay you, Mistress Salt. Far be it from me to tear a child from its mother. Let us dine in harmony this evening so that you may see we mean no damage to your property. As for arms and silver, pots and fodder – an army on the march must fill its belly.’
‘How long do you stay?’
‘As long as the garrison besieged in the cathedral holds out against the Committee of Two Kingdoms. It is only a matter of time with hunger and sickness, this heat and little water. The King may claim to have the best cause but Parliament has the better army, do you not agree?’
‘I care not either way. This war has robbed me of the only treasure I prized, the love of a good and honest husband.’
‘Squire Beavis Salt, am I right?’
‘You know of him? He fell at Edgehill but my Lucilla still prays that he will be returned to us unharmed.’ Nazareth searched his face in the vain hope he might offer a shred of comfort.
A muscle twitched on his right cheek as if he held himself in check. He looked away and shook his head.
‘I thought as much… but there was always hope since his body was never returned to us.’
‘Sadly, madam, ’twas the fate of men on both sides to lie together in death though they fought opposite in life. Warfare is a fickle partner. It takes from us more than it gives back. Who can say he is the winner after losses such as we have all seen?’
The widow nodded as she brushed past him to go inside. With a few words he had extinguished forever the feeble glimmer of Lucie’s lantern of hope but now was not the time to break such news.
*
‘Have they gone, Mother?’ Lucilla peered up at her from under the counterpane, hopeful grey eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. She was tucked up snugly with her doll and the dog, her box and fan.
‘No, little one, they must needs lodge here awhile. I’m afraid you’ll have to bear with the enemy like a brave soldier as you did before.’
‘Will they search the house again and find the secret room?’
‘I’m sure they’ll go through it with a nit comb, tapping panels and checking all the presses, though the Captain seems a gentleman. He wishes to use some rooms as a lodging. He will dine with us this evening.’ Lucie sat up.
‘I’m not hungry…’
‘I know, I know. But, Lucie, we must be courteous to him. He holds the key to our safety and the well-being of the village. Try to be polite.’
‘Father would not want us to sit with the enemy.’
‘Father knows not what we do.’
‘But when he comes home…’
‘How many times have I told you? When you live in Heaven with the angels you cannot come home again to live on earth.’
‘No, that’s not true! He’s busy on the King’s secret service, a spy behind enemy lines… You’ll see, one day he will come home to us and then he’ll want to know all our doings. He will be very vexed to hear that you fed the enemy.’
‘Oh, child! If I do not then we are utterly ruined and they will sack the house. We could be slaughtered like cattle. Do be sensible.’
‘I am not going to speak to any of them. Ever.’
‘The Captain is a Bagshott, he knows our district well.’
‘Then he should know better than to meddle with a Salt. We are above them… Bagshotts are peasants, bracken gatherers and jobbing men. Martha has told me about them.’
‘Lucilla, silence! In God’s sight we are all equal. We do not choose to whom we are born but He in His wisdom places us where He wills to fulfil His destiny. He makes some high and some low, as he makes some flowers beautiful and longlasting, others little more than grass. Try to understand you must not say such things. Speak when you are spoken to and do not anger the Captain, please, I beg you.’
‘If you say so, but only for Father’s sake. Will we dine around the kitchen board or are we to eat civilised?’
‘Tonight for a change we will eat civilised like ladies around the table made from the century oak. Well have a lace cloth and a posy of fallen roses to grace our meal. You will tidy your hair and put on your sprigged muslin and a clean cap.’
Lucie jumped out of the bed and pointed to the closet. ‘Then you must go to the attic and pull out your best blue, not those black weeds. There’s no need to wear mourning when Father is not dead. Loosen your ringlets and powder your face. It’s freckled with the sun like a maid’s. Let’s pretend we dine with Father and not a cruel soldier.’
Nazareth nodded, relieved that she had humoured the child enough to make her compliant. It would do no harm to put on fresh garments, to rinse her hair in rosemary oil and lace her bodice. Lucie was right, she had worn sombre black for too long.
*
The four of them sat around the table whilst Martha dished out the soupy broth, a mixture of summer greens and meat flakes, trying not to tremble and spill the liquid. Lucie kept her eyes on the tablecloth, watching to see if the soldiers spilled on it. Peto the dog nestled on her lap in eager anticipation.
‘Pardon the broth, you’ll have to send in a search party to find any chicken within… the bread is thick enough. I did not jest when I said we lived on hard cheese and plums.’
The men smiled politely but the child bent her head in shame at her mother’s apologetic words. The plums came gently poached and softened with the last of the skimmed cream from their one milk cow. They were bitter and sorely in need of a drizzle of honey but the bees had swarmed into the forest and the honey was poor.
The soldiers sat stiffly at first, sipping the broth and the goblets of small beer. Micah had washed himself down in the trickle of the spring, searched in his saddle bag for a clean collar. There was none so he tried to turn the grubby one inside out, to no better effect. He had combed the lugs out of his hair as best he could but the effect was erratic and it hung stiffly with grease and grime.
‘This is an excellent meal, sister, considering your shortages. And you, little maid, do you help your mother with her chores? You look a bright button to me.’ He was not used to child talk, having nieces and nephews enough but no time for conversation with them.
The girl stared at him fiercely, jutting her chin like the woman in the portrait on the stairwell. She looked right through him as if he were invisible, sensing his awkwardness, then turned back to her pottage bowl.
‘Forgive Lucilla, she is a shy child not used to company. She will come to, given time. Ignoring her is the best way to engage her curiosity, I find.’
There was an air of tension in the room, a thunderous heat which stifled the chamber. No one spoke much, listening instead to the drone of insects, the slurping of soup, the clink of spoon on bowl, the patter of the restless dog as it scoured the wooden floor, in search of scraps.
The sky was darkening for a storm. There was a light wind, a few spits and spots of rain and the rumble of thunder in the distance. Nothing more. They waited at the window for cooling showers but none came.
The Captain could scarce take his eyes from the widow’s face; the way her cheeks flushed when she spoke, the shiny coils of golden curls with no trace of silver thr
eads, the blueness of her eyes which exactly matched the bright blue sheen of her brocade gown, the heave of her bosom beneath. This was not the feeble old woman he had expected. Nazareth Salt was beautiful to behold, wearied by suffering but fresh still and courageous to live so unprotected.
His plans to destroy her garden had withered before the frost of her total disinterest, nay relief that the deed was begun! In every manner she had outwitted him unknowingly, robbed him of his petty revenge on the Salts, made him feel mean and small in his own eyes. There was no fear or contempt in her gaze, only a mild interest and an obvious admiration of his physique which had conquered most of the women he had dallied with. She liked the way he bowed to no man but his Maker.
The shock of her presence this evening as she came down the stairs in the blue gown, with lace ruffling around her like mist and the scent of rosewater in her hair, had taken him off guard, arousing his senses shamefully. A Bagshott dining with a Salt – who would ever have thought such a thing possible? She was at his mercy. One command and all this could be destroyed. But while she made such efforts to please him he could be generous and accommodating.
*
Nazareth could not sleep. She paced across the floor, covered only in a sheet. The heat was unbearable, the itch of the summer bugs a torment. How could she sleep when she was surrounded by alien strangers… and him. Oh, yes! He’d known she was watching him; the way he tilted his head to one side intently when she spoke, the flash and sparkle of his dark eyes. His teeth were yellow and his mouth stank of baccy but there was another smell to him, a pungent smell of youth and vigour, sensuality and the carnal; a dangerous smell on one so close to one so lonely and starved of affection. It had been too long… Nazareth had been safe as a lonely widow, undisturbed, but in one day all was changed. The twinkling of an eye, a crash of thunder, and her peace was disturbed.
Nazareth had never looked at any man other than Beavis until now. Soldiers and priests, schoolmasters and gentry had passed this way but not once had she taken a second glance. To look with lust on an enemy agent, one of the killers of her own sweet husband perhaps, to assess his broad shoulders and slim hips, the thickness of his thighs. What would it feel like to be crushed between them, overpowered by his embrace, taken by storm? Harlot! she chided herself. Was he not a mere Bagshott, a merchant’s son, a scholar perhaps but of no rank worth noting? He had little finesse and was rough-spoken. How could she contemplate such a betrayal?
It had been madness to wear the brocade, to display herself for all to see, flaunting her breasts. His eyes had lingered there. She could have covered up rather than revealed herself. He had caught her gaze, holding it overlong, and she like a strumpet had boldly stared him out.
He was roused by her, she could sniff it like smoke on the breeze, and it pleased and terrified her equally. This power betwixt a man and a woman… there should be a statute against it in the courts. A man and a woman sending smoke signals like spies in the forest.
*
Lucie searched in her bureau for some parchment scraps left over from the estate bills, some empty space upon which to scribble letters and practise her script. She had tutoring with her cousins from Vicar Masterson occasionally, could write her name and some Latin phrases. At last she found a tiny scrap of clear space and dipped the quill into the dye to scratch her words. She must write to Father at once. He must come home. There was a new danger in this place, a strange smell of change and something she did not understand. It had begun when Mother came down the stairs and the men stared and stared at her.
‘Venite, Pater, Venite ad Fridewell. Lucilla Salt, 1645.’
It would have to do. Those were all the words she knew. Where should she send it? To Aunt Letty at Longhall? She might pass it on. Mother would be no help at all. But how to get it there? Letters had no wings.
Under Sufferance
The pulse of the village beat slowly in the fierce heat of late summer. The sun hung like a brass ball in the sky and the field workers struggled to keep their rhythm, pausing to take breath and wipe the sweat from their brows. Cart wheels crackled over stubble and the gleaners bent to their task, feeling the dust and grit on tongue and teeth.
The garrison at the Newhouse went on their daily patrols like huntsmen to the chase; the first enthusiasm for digging up, raking and sifting ponds in search of silver, sawing off palings and hedgerows for firewood, thankfully waned in favour of fisticuffs between each other or any locals foolish enough to cross their path. Fridewell’s initial panic changed to resignation and then sullen resentment. Had not Barnswells and Bagshotts, Millers and Hoptons, rallied to Parliament at the first clarion call to arms? Had they not refused to pay the Lord of the Manor any silver for the King’s cause? Now they were sick of this conflict and invasion; sick of bugles and drum beats and horsemen who stabled their beasts in their church and ambushed sheep for supper, chasing them round the green like knights in a tiltyard. Some silly lasses hankered after a shiny uniform and a strong arm until the night when drunken troopers chased a maid into the forest and mowed her down like a roe deer in a stag hunt. Mistress Salt took up the grievance for her weeping parents and made a complaint.
Only then did Captain Bagshott accept that his men were shaming his command. He took one of the accused and had him strung up on the oak tree by the green as an example to all. Here the body swayed until rooks pecked out the eyes and the bloated and blackened sight sickened the miller enough for him to cut it down and bury it out of sight on the high track. There was little trouble after that and the Bagshott kin were satisfied that Captain Micah knew where his loyalties lay.
In the Newhouse Martha and Gideon went about their tasks cautiously whilst their mistress saw to the drying of the herbs – lavender, tansy, rue, mint, fennel, borage, comfrey and pennyroyal – gathering them into bunches to hang in the dark press. It was time too to dry the peas and beans, store the apples and pears, but few were left after the troopers’ raids.
Everyone searched the skies for some sign of rain. The hard earth was solid as red brick and it was difficult to set to the rebuilding of the rose bed though some of the men were shamed into taking picks to loosen the soil.
Nazareth, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat to hide her face from the sun, strode out determined to reclaim my lady’s garden for herself, leaving only Old Sarah’s path around the house where the fig tree still yielded more hard wood than fruit. She would make a wheel of green herbs, with spokes to separate out the different plantings. One or two roses would be entwined around the restored sundial at the centre. Perhaps she would leave the rest to grass over. She’d cajoled two men to piece together the bits of stone and re-erect the pedestal. They huffed and puffed but she smiled sweetly and tossed her curls, trying to lift the thing herself until they were shamed into doing the job. All this took her fevered mind from the oppressive heat and the constant tramp of men and horses over her land. But most of all from the intimidating presence of the Captain within her household.
They were circling around each other politely as if performing some courtly dance, a bourrée where the partners never touched or moved together but were ever in sight of one another. Then came the blessed relief of three days when all the patrol disappeared on manoeuvres; three days of peace and quiet, a chance to wash privately and stroll uninterrupted, to see to the household duties and for a message to be sent to Letty at Longhall, announcing the troop’s arrival and telling all the news. They were but a league from each other but Letty was near to her time. Then Nazareth decided to carry the news herself. To bide with another gentlewoman for a day or two, to win some relief from Lucilla’s stubbornness and incessant questions. There was no way that the child would be allowed to stay on those blessed stairs, staring out of the window, this time. She must be bribed, cajoled, beaten into the mule cart to play with her cousins.
To Nazareth’s great surprise the little minx sweetly accepted the prospect of a journey, packed her doll in her basket, tied a ribbon on Peto and prep
ared to board the cart. Just as they were about to set off, a patrol of cavalry galloped into the yard, blocking their exit.
‘On whose orders do you leave this place?’ asked the Sergeant with the cold blue eyes and sneering mouth.
‘’Tis time to visit our kin. We need no permission,’ Nazareth retorted, cursing their ill luck in not departing sooner.
‘The Salts of Longhall? Papists and notorious Malignants. You go to give them knowledge of our whereabouts, no doubt? To espy on these men, giving such information as might be to our disadvantage. Get thee down, mistress, and retire. You go nowhere.’
‘How dare you? I will not be ordered into my own dwelling as if to a prison!’ Nazareth made to stand her ground.
‘That’s for our Captain to decide, dame. No one is to be let in or out of this village without his say so.’
Nazareth felt a surge of impotent rage. She pulled her daughter down from the cart. Lucie was in tears. This was to be their first outing in months and now it was thwarted by this jumped up peasant in uniform. How dare he behave in this manner?
‘Come, child, let’s go to see to our new garden,’ her mother suggested.
‘I want to go inside. I hate your silly garden. Martha will find me some wool to card and brush…’
Lucie dashed back towards the front door and her mother shook her head with frustration. The Sergeant smiled, pleased that he had stopped her little game. He did not trust the witch. He had seen the effect she was having on the Captain’s manner, making him as soft and yielding as a ball of dough.
It was later that afternoon when Micah and his escort arrived back at Newhouse. He had made a detour to the city to check on his family, Martha gleaned from the gossip. The plague still raged among its streets but his mother was safe and well. The siege of the Cathedral was continuing and it could only be weeks before they would yield.
