The Tyrant’s Shadow

by Antonia Senior

  But today. Today there is sunshine, there is Blackberry and there is the promise of home, tomorrow. She tilts her face to the sun and thinks of home. How the berries will be fruiting, and the grass will be new-cut, and the brook will be low and barely bubbling.

  ‘Excuse me, miss.’

  She comes awake from her reverie. A man. An unshaven man, with salt-thick bedraggled hair and a tanned face that marks him out as no Englishman. Wrinkles he is too young for web the corners of his eyes. Once a soldier, clearly.

  ‘I have nothing for you,’ she says, grabbing for Blackberry. London is full of men like this: penniless, sometimes limbless.

  He looks wide-eyed at her, then laughs. A great infectious belly-slap of a guffaw. ‘Bless your kind heart, miss, I don’t want charity.’

  His voice is cultured, refined. She looks closer and sees that his clothes were fine once, dandyish even. His boots are polished and worn. ‘Damn my eyes, miss, but I must look a sight worse than I thought. Here was I thinking I was quite the thing, strolling about.’

  ‘I am sorry, I . . .’ She trails off, confused. But his good humour is catching and she finds herself smiling back at him.

  ‘Never mind, miss. I shouldn’t be accosting ladies in the street. But I have a question. May I?’

  She nods. Blackberry has slipped his hand into hers and looks up at the man with intent eyes.

  ‘Were you a soldier, sir?’ he asks

  The man squats on to his haunches, looking the boy in the eyes. ‘I was. And a sailor. I am not long back from the West Indies. I saw gales and shipwrecks and natives. I ate coconuts and flying fish.’

  Blackberry’s eyes are huge and round. His hand grips tighter in Patience’s palm and she squats down too, so that the three of them are a strange tableau of little people around which the throng must divert on their Moorfields perambulations.

  ‘He is teasing you, Blackberry,’ she says.

  ‘Blackberry?’

  ‘It is my nickname, sir. Given to me by my mother. Did you see a mermaid?’

  ‘I did not. But I heard one singing one night. Beautiful sound. Like a sighing. Dying of love for me, I shouldn’t wonder. Sighted me through the porthole.’

  ‘Now he really is teasing,’ says Patience. ‘Come, darling. We must be at home.’

  She straightens herself up. He remains crouched down, looking up at her with a face that catches the sunshine.

  ‘My question?’

  ‘Well then, if you are quick about it.’

  He smiles and says: ‘Is the boy’s real name Richard?’

  She nods. Blackberry, too, nods emphatically. ‘Is he magic, Auntie Imp?’

  ‘Blackberry,’ she says, admonishing him. But the man only laughs.

  ‘Aye, little man. And was your mother’s name Henrietta?’ ‘Yes. But I do not remember her.’

  ‘Oh little man. She’s watching you, don’t doubt it. And so proud of you, all tall and handsome. I saw her once lift you in the air and blow on your tummy and tell you her heart would break for the love of you.’

  Blackberry looks frightened now. He reaches to tug at Patience’s skirt. Breaking eye contact with the man and pushing his hair back behind his ears with quick fingers.

  The man stands, rueful. He strokes his chestnut beard and says: ‘Sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to frighten the boy. It’s just . . . Seeing him unexpectedly. It’s thrown me right off course.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Samuel Challoner, miss. Brother to the boy’s mother. And if I may ask, who are you?’

  They walk back through the city towards Will’s house. Blackberry has taken the arrival of a lost uncle with all the equanimity of a five-year-old.

  He keeps up a running commentary on the scenes they pass, leaving Sam and Patience to grin at each other over his chattering head. ‘. . . There’s the book-seller. My mama worked in a bookshop during the wars. A woman working, sir. My father says she loved books. Do you love books, sir? Do you read lots of books? My uncle Ned was killed in the war in Ireland. Did you know him, sir, my uncle Ned? Uncle Sidrach said that he was smiting the papists for God, but my father says that’s all stuff and nonsense—’

  ‘Blackberry.’

  ‘Sorry, Auntie Imp. There’s the wine shop, sir. Do you like wine? My father . . .’

  Sam watches the boy as he talks. He looks at the serious, earnest face; the freckles and the green eyes. The ghost of his mother, walking and strolling in the sun, collecting its light in the gleaming chestnut strands of hair. It is astonishing, yet not. A prosaic miracle. There must be some Will in the boy, but try as he might, Sam can’t remember much of his brother-in-law. Will came into their lives when Sam’s was full to the brim; with his apprenticeship, with his drill for the trained bands, with his enthusiastic discovery of women. Some ten years ago; more perhaps.

  Sam was running with the Roundheads then, in the early skirmishes. Before the bastards hanged his father.

  ‘. . . but Uncle Sidrach says General Cromwell will tread the ungodly into the earth, sir.’

  ‘I hope not,’ says Sam. He mimes being crushed by a giant foot, and is rewarded with a laugh from Blackberry, and a reluctant smile from Patience.

  He is confused by Patience. Should a Puritan girl look so ready to laugh? Should a Puritan girl look so unbound, somehow, as if she is close to skipping with each step? Should a Puritan girl have such kissable lips?

  ‘Uncle Sidrach?’ he asks.

  ‘My husband, Mr Challoner. Sidrach Simmonds. A preacher.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, neutral. Her lips can be as sweet as a cherry, but they are not for him. The last thing he needs is some godly preacher calling brimstone on his head.

  ‘What are your plans?’ Will looks across at the man opposite, seeing his resemblance to Henrietta and feeling the catch in his throat.

  ‘As I told your sister, I have none. My general has neither men nor ships. And I am done with fighting.’

  ‘You serve the Antichrist,’ says Patience.

  ‘Do I? Lord save me.’

  ‘The Lord does not like sarcastic calls upon him.’

  ‘Does he not? And do you have His ear? I think, Mrs Simmonds, that the God who made this world was a sarcastic cove Himself. Do you not agree?’

  Patience begins her retort, but catches Will’s eye and falls silent. Sam seems huge, impossibly vibrant. He is all broad shoulders. The walls seem too small to contain him; she can better imagine him at sea, facing down a storm, than she can comprehend his actual presence in this dusty room. His face is mahogany, set with white teeth.

  ‘Do you have any money? Anywhere to stay?’

  ‘A little. And no. I was thinking to throw my lot in with any servants of the true king I can find.’

  ‘God’s blood, Challoner,’ says Will, visibly flinching. ‘Don’t talk of Stuart in that fashion here. You’ll have us all hanged.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Will,’ says Sam, and he means it. He thinks of little Blackberry – asleep now, with flushed cheeks and an innocence radiating from him like a reproach.

  Patience looks pleased, as if Sam’s apology is a mark in God’s favour. Which is provoking.

  ‘The Act of Oblivion pardons me, even if you do not, Mrs Simmonds.’

  ‘You are still liable for fines for treasonable acts,’ says Will. ‘Perhaps.’ Sam laughs. ‘They may try to fine me as much as they like. I have nothing to give. My father’s property has been sequestered and spent.’

  ‘You must stay here,’ says Will. Sam begins to protest and Will leans forward, pitching his voice loud. ‘Listen. You are Henrietta’s brother. I love her. Loved her. I insist.’

  ‘How will it play out with your employer?’ asks Patience. ‘He’s a traitor.’

  Sam stands quickly, and the chair clatters to the ground. He says nothing, just looks at her with something approaching contempt. She finds it strangely disconcerting. He walks to the window and leans out, as if finding an unlikely succour from the still air of a London in heat.


  ‘Your employer?’ he says, turning back into the room. ‘I thought you were a lawyer, Will?’

  ‘I am working as a secretary. For the Lord Cromwell.’

  ‘Old Noll,’ splutters Sam. ‘Old Noll. I’ll be buggered. Beg your pardon, Mrs Simmonds. But Old Noll.’

  ‘Who will not take kindly to Will harbouring a Royalist.’

  ‘I’ll square it somehow,’ says Will. In truth, he is a little nervous. About squaring it with Cromwell, but more about having this man share his space. He knows his house is quiet; knows it is dry. He knows that when Blackberry is not there, the silence is an echo that pulses. But Sam is huge and loud and vigorously present. What else can he do? Sam is laughing now, at the thought of cosying up to Old Noll, and his eyes crinkle so like his sister’s that Will wants to sink to his knees and curl into a despairing ball.

  He stands. ‘Wait here,’ he says, as if Sam has somewhere else to go.

  As the door closes behind him, Sam looks towards Patience. ‘I beg your pardon if I offend you, Mrs Simmonds.’

  ‘You do not. Your politics, however. Your godlessness. These offend me.’

  ‘How do you know I am not more beloved of the Lord than you?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘That is what I love about the godly,’ says Sam. ‘You preach a good sermon about humility and being the Lord’s arsewipe and all that. But you’re so damn certain you know His mind. Me? I know that I know nothing.’

  ‘At least you know that.’

  ‘Ah, Mrs Simmonds. I know lots of things. I know how to make stroked dogs whimper with pleasure. I know how to suck the marrow from a bone. I know how to lick the last of the wine from the rim of the cup. I know about living, Mrs Simmonds, and I let the next life take care of itself.’

  ‘You will burn.’

  ‘Will I? I daresay. But so might you. And at least I will have had some joy before I become toast. At least, Mrs Simmonds, my soul will sing in this life, if not the next.’

  ‘Your soul is singing the devil’s tune, but you cannot hear it.’

  They fall silent, waiting for Will to return.

  I am not so severe as this, thinks Patience.

  I am not such a cavalry buffoon as this, thinks Sam.

  Will comes back into a silent room, and looks from one to the other. The air is charged with something. Patience looks as if she might cry. She raises an arm to push her hair back, and he sees a fading bruise on the skin underneath her wrist.

  ‘I have something for you. To start you off,’ he says to Sam.

  He holds out a pouch, and Sam opens it. Inside, a pair of earrings set with rubies, and a necklace to match. He pulls them out, and even in this gloomy room, they seem to gleam.

  ‘Your mother’s,’ says Will.

  ‘But these should be Blackberry’s.’

  ‘Blackberry will be provided for, Will. Henrietta was keeping them as a surety against misfortune, or until our fortunes revived. Our fortunes are settled, and I do not have a daughter. You must have them. Sell them. Use the money to make money, somehow. Perhaps you will find you are your father’s son. In business, I mean.’

  Sam looks up at Will, struggling to adjust. He is too used to being alone. Too accustomed to the soldier’s knack of smearing everything real with a protective sludge of irony and bluff.

  ‘Thank you, Will,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’

  LONDON

  July 1653

  WILL DRESSES WITH CARE. HE INSPECTS HIS BEST COAT for fluff and lint. He rubs his shoes to draw out an extra gleam. He actually looks in a mirror, an activity he generally leaves for women and Cavaliers. The face that stares out at him is older than he remembers. A sad, grey face. Is this really me? he wonders. Is this how people see me?

  He snorts derision at the philosopher in the mirror. He puts his hat firmly on his head, at right angles. The tall crown of it breaches the edge of the mirror.

  ‘You are lovely, Father,’ says Blackberry behind him.

  Will turns to see the boy in the doorway, still in his nightgown. He clutches a scrap of blanket; a mouldy, threadbare thing that he will not do without at bedtime. Will’s mother says it should be burned. Will’s mother says the boy must learn to put aside such things, now that the breeching is near. But Will watches the boy pull the blanket to his face and lean a cheek against it.

  ‘It is an important day, Blackberry. A man should look his best as history is made.’

  The boy comes into the room, and climbs on to the trunk at the foot of the bed. He perches there and looks at his father with serious eyes.

  ‘Uncle Sam says Oliver Cromwell wants to be king.’ He stumbles over the name.

  ‘Well, Blackberry. It is not that simple. It never is. Today he is calling an assembly of good men, and they will decide how we will be governed.’

  ‘Did Oliver Cromwell decide who was good and who was bad?’

  Will checks in his task, his coat only half on and the sleeve trailing on the floor. He still thinks of the boy as a collection of bodily functions wrapped inside a kissable skin. That there is a thinking mind inside that small skull comes as a shock.

  ‘Yes,’ he says simply, still on the back foot, struggling for balance.

  Blackberry nods. A serious, grown-up face that makes Will’s heart shatter into fragments. He cannot bear it. Cannot bear the weight of love. Cannot bear the possibility of more pain.

  ‘Run along now, Blackberry. Find Nurse.’

  The boy nods, and rolls off the trunk in the most complicated way he can devise. Will reaches out a hand to steady him, but he is up and off, the light patter of his footsteps hardly stirring the air of the house.

  It is only after Will has left the house, pulling the door behind him and feeling the still air of a summer morning on his skin, that he remembers Blackberry is off to the country today to stay with his grandparents. London in this heat is no place for a boy, with disease bubbling through the cracked paving stones, pestilence a smirr on the foul-smelling Thames.

  He tries to think of the day ahead as he walks towards Whitehall. Tries to think of the tasks he will need to perform for Cromwell, who even now will be pacing whatever room contains him, excitement hovering about him and infecting all who approach.

  But all he can think about are the different ways a small boy can find to die: falls from trunks or trees that can crack a skull; plague sores flowering on pale skin, coughs that can rack a thin body until blood runs like spittle.

  ‘I am leaving now, Sidrach,’ says Patience.

  He looks up from his bible. His eyes are dark, with pooled black shadows beneath them.

  ‘To my parents’. You remember? The Capps are to accompany me partway.’ She is babbling at him. Terrified he will change his mind about letting her go. He has been in a vicious temper since the names for the Nominated Assembly were announced, and his was markedly absent. Other Fifth Monarchists have been called.

  Will tells them that the wags of London have already nicknamed this new assembly the Barebones Parliament, after one of the members, Praise-God Barebone.

  It is today, the first meeting.

  He stands and walks past her, out of his study. Down the stairs. He is still silent. The thump and creak of his steps echo through the house. She follows. Why did she not just slip out? Stupid. She is too stupid, too provoking. Why must she always make him angry?

  He strides into the kitchen. Tom is blacking boots by the fire. When Sidrach enters, he stands, abruptly. Scared.

  Finally Sidrach speaks, in a heavy, ponderous voice. ‘Are you still here, Patience? Be off, woman.’

  She gathers herself. ‘God keep you while I am gone, husband,’ she says.

  ‘And why would he not? Am I not His? They will know it, Patience. Those knaves and blackguards. Those beasts pretending to be men.’

  He is winding himself up. She sees Tom’s face behind his shoulder – the sullen white scowl.

  ‘And you,’ says Sidrach. ‘My wife. My wife. Going to pick daisies
in the country while England’s soul is at stake. The beasts and the devils and the harlots sucking at her blessed soul.’

  He catches her arm with one hand; the other is balled into a fist. He pulls it back, low to catch her stomach, and she can see on his face the beginning of the smile, the relief he seems to feel when he first makes contact with her. She flinches and closes her eyes. The blow does not land.

  Opening her eyes, she see Tom. He is holding on to Sidrach’s wrist. There is a look of horror on his face, as if he cannot believe what he has done. He lets go. On Sidrach’s fine lace cuff – his best – Tom’s blacked thumbprint is horribly visible.

  They all stare at it, mesmerized.

  Patience breaks the moment first. ‘Sidrach. No. No, please.’ But he is grabbing hold of Tom’s arm, pulling him towards the fire. He is pushing his small, grubby hand towards the red-hot charcoal. Tom is stumbling, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the floor, sobs mingling with a garbled stream of apologies.

  The room smells ripe, suddenly. Of burning flesh, and piss, which dribbles down the boy’s leg and puddles at his feet. Sidrach lets go, dropping Tom to the floor, where he huddles and weeps. With a look to Patience that she cannot read, Sidrach strides out of the room.

  Cromwell has them. All 138 of them, crowded into this room, lean into his words like snakes being charmed. He stands with legs planted wide, turns this way and that. Throws his gaze upon a man here, a man there, until each saint in the room feels as if Old Noll’s eyes rest upon him alone.

  Will stands at the back, pressed into the wood panelling. The council chamber was full before Cromwell arrived with a coterie of followers and officers. The table sits solidly in the middle, taking space. Behind each seat, men stand and mill. Cromwell stands at the head of the table, leaning against the chair. I will be quick, he tells them again and again. But he is not quick. He talks on into the hush. The chamber is headily hot; it smells of horse and sweat. And hope, Will thinks, fancifully. He lets himself become carried away. Lets himself feel a part of something great, something glorious. Beside him, Nedham, who came early and commandeered space enough, scratches furiously with his pen.