Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  Bella wondered whether she should tell Matilda to shave the lot off and be done with it.

  “Have you finished or have I run out of hair?”

  Bella raised her hand, examined the stark tufts behind her ear trying to picture what her crowning glory looked like. It felt like old thatch.

  It would grow back, Matilda had insisted. She’d known one musketeer who had gone up like a torch when a stray spark had set off his apostles - the dozen or so powder pots which dangled from the bandolier across his chest.

  “He looked like a pickled walnut for weeks, but it had all grown back by winter.”

  Bella frowned. A pickled walnut? She clicked her tongue, startling Matilda from her study of the garden.

  Matilda stood back and studied her handiwork, still not sure she wasn’t making matters worse. She could see Bella’s cheek swell as she ran her tongue this way and that over her gums, probing the yawning and bloody gaps where her upper and lower molars had been.

  She’d kept her front teeth at least. You would have to tilt her chin and thumb her cheek aside to reveal the real damage.

  Her jaw and forearm would mend well enough, given the hours the surgeon had devoted to the strangely listless damsel. Telling had paid. Ready coin too.

  A week after the battle and the majority of the officers had been carried off to Leicester or Rockingham. The soldiers had either kicked the bucket or been sewn up and returned to Black Tom’s Red Army. No matter which side they had been serving at Naseby fight.

  “They weren’t baby teeth,” Matilda scolded, tapping the scissors against her shoulder. Bella glanced up at her, eyes manacled by rings of alternate purple and green bruising. “They aren’t about to grow back now. Don’t smile like this,” she gave an idiot grin. “Close your mouth and smile, like this.”

  Bella raised an eyebrow.

  “You look like a constipated cat,” Bella chuckled.

  “I was trying for demure.”

  “Try harder.”

  They both laughed. It sounded oddly false in the empty cottage.

  “I’m just saying. Adjust your lips, don’t show your teeth like an old horse at the knackers.”

  “Or an old maid.” Matilda frowned, exasperated.

  “You’ll be fine. A couple of hours with a glass, brush and comb, you’ll see.” She stroked the raggedly sawn hank of hair around the cut above Bella’s ear. “Your hair will grow back soon enough. Wear it long, brush it like so, nobody will notice.”

  How many more times did she have to say it?

  “Perhaps a hat?” Bella joked mirthlessly. “Or a bonnet. A nun’s habit. A pickled walnut in a whimple.”

  Matilda sniggered, then frowned at Bella’s all too familiar refrain.

  Was she seriously imagining she would seal herself up in a nunnery, seal the crack between her legs like some manhandled mother superior?

  Not Bella. Not her Bella.

  “There’s no lasting damage. Bruises will fade. They didn’t split your nose or cut your pretty cheek to the bone like those poor cows at the camp,” she reminded, losing patience with Bella’s uncharacteristic self-pity. She ran her forefinger down Bella’s bruised cheek, the delicate bone structure trembling beneath her touch as if her nail could split the pale skin.

  Her finger came to rest, poised in the corner of her lips. Bella looked up.

  Matilda had looked away toward the cottage door, her indulgent smile replaced by a sudden rictus of distaste as if she couldn’t bear to even touch her.

  “Miss Dawkins.”

  Edward Telling emerged from the cramped cottage doorway, his puffy red features filling up the narrow garret like a loaf in an oven.

  Matilda lowered the scissors, eyed him as he stood there blinking in the window-strained sunlight, like some night owl caught in the open.

  “Edward,” Bella smiled, remembered her missing teeth and compressed her lips as Matilda had shown her, concealing her hateful battle scars.

  He looked nervous, unsure of himself. Unless her hideous appearance had unnerved him. She wondered for a moment if Matilda had misled her about the extent of her injuries. Made light of her lopsided jaw and scarecrow squint. She thought fleetingly of lepers, cowls and bells. Outcasts.

  Edward’s features seemed to crumple and re-arrange themselves.Shock. Pity. Repulsion. Revulsion.

  “Bella, my dear.” Wringing the rim of his hat in his sausage fingers.

  “I have received word from His Highness Prince Rupert’s headquarters.”

  Hugo. Bella winced as if Matilda’s dreamy touch had turned to an iron-studded assault. She’d forgotten all about him, worrying about her lost looks.

  “I am afraid your husband, my dear brother,” he glanced around the cottage, the goodwife fussing over her brush, Matilda alert, opening and closing the scissors in agitation.

  “Is reported as having fallen in the battle. During the pursuit,” he modified. Bella felt a cold tear roll down her cheek and fall onto her bruised forearm. As much from shame as shock.

  Dead? She could barely think, she could barely think straight, think whether she was thinking of him or herself. The massive, awful awareness she had been so wrapped up in her own troubles she had hardly thought of her absent lover. Not since the battle. Bella had imagined, had assumed he would turn up as usual, bloody and flushed, his moustache twitching, his eyes delighting in her.

  Matilda’s hand found her shoulder, somehow held her straight as the shock ran through her like the spine-shattering recoil of a culverin.

  “A comrade saw him fall. In the pursuit.” Edward braced his shoulders, he seemed to have filled the room, blocking out the light, his lank hair pressed into the beams and thatch.

  “I am so sorry, my dearest Bella.”

  Matilda, sharp as the dagger hidden in her stays, glanced up, studied his plump, flushed features. Dearest? Dearest?

  Aye, she was dear to this one right enough.

  Telling noticed the accusing look, realised his mistake. Over-reaching himself in front of the red-headed, bare-headed whore. He took a step forward into the scullery, his angry eyes adjusting to the gently dappled light.

  Bella’s mouth moved, pale lips moving over her teeth, staring at her hands, folded in her lap. Her shoulders jumped as she began to sob. Matilda held on to her, at bay beside her mistress. Protective and fearful of this dangerously bloated madman.

  “He was my brother,” Telling grated, looking from Matilda to the widow.

  Widow? The Widow Telling. It sounded hideous, too hideous to be true.

  Matilda was keenly aware of the brute’s temper, dared not gainsay him.

  “In the pursuit, we were all lost. All was confusion,” she reasoned, not daring to hold his stare. “Is it possible, at all possible, they mistook a dry blow for...”

  “I wish to God you were right,” Telling over-ruled, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. Bella had slumped to one side, pinned by Matilda’s white knuckled hand.

  “Prince Rupert himself has confirmed the worst. He...Hugo fell. During the pursuit, his regiment had been brought to bay in a pudding poke lane.”

  “Pudding poke lane?” Bella exclaimed, clenching her fists. Fingers red nails white.

  “A dead end,” Telling added, immediately cursing his thoughtless choice of words. “Blocked off, no way through,” he explained, reddening again.

  “Chaos. Hundreds of Ironsides riding down the survivors,” Matilda observed.

  “Even so,” Telling replied suspiciously.

  “And yet in all the chaos, Prince Rupert himself was able to take careful note of Hugo’s death.”

  Telling was silent, glanced from Bella’s bowed head to the impudent whore.

  “I did not suggest Prince Rupert witnessed my brother’s death,” he said carefully. “Merely that he had received word of his death. And the place, Marston Thrussel. Not half a dozen miles from here.”

  His eyes blazed a silent warning. If you don’t shut your trap I’ll have you tru
ssed up and tied behind my horse and I will drag you to his grave myself.

  Matilda glared back, at bay behind her cowed companion. Three years she’d known her. Off and on. Since those endless sunny days outside of Bath.

  A different age now.

  Telling’s rage swarmed around the scullery. Fingers tightening about the brim of his hat. Wishing to Christ it was her neck.

  “In all the chaos, he might have fallen. He might have been knocked cold. Can we believe he is dead?”

  “Believe?” Telling spluttered, features draining as his rage built.

  “Believe? Do you imagine I would tell tales of my own brother’s death?” he demanded. Bella started. Matilda swallowed.

  “Of course not sir. I did not mean to suggest...there may have been a mistake,” the redhead insisted.

  “He did not rejoin the Prince at Leicester. He is not with the prisoners being marched to London. He is not among the Cavaliers taken to Rockingham. A soldier from the Queens regiment saw him fall. Cut down in the rout.”

  Telling took a deep breath, trying to keep his hands from strangling the life from this pestilential, pox-ridden harlot. “Neither is he listed among the wounded, which I have examined at length.He is...” Another breath, a new tack.

  “I appreciate your concern, for my brother,” he stressed, “But I am persuaded he is dead. Your concern for your mistress does you great credit,” he snarled, smiling.

  Bella reached up, gripped Matilda’s hand.

  “And you shall have coin, for the great care you have taken of her.” He lifted his purse, began nudging shillings into his palm.

  Matilda watched him tip the money out. Five fucks there. Ten maybe. Telling held her gaze, as if the fat bastard was measuring her price. Twenty. He emptied the purse, rolled the grubby gold coins, weighing her worth, daring her to scorn a small fortune.

  “We are both indebted to you, for the care you have taken. But it would not be seemly for Bella to remain in the company of a woman,” Telling chose his words carefully, “who has cares and concerns of her own.”

  He thrust the purse and coins toward her, palm up. Matilda risked one last look and then took the coins.

  “For your kind service, to my brother’s wife.” She closed her fist about the coins. “I have drawn up a pass for you, to return to the nearest garrison at Belvoir.”

  “You have thought of everything,” she smiled, with all the furious dignity she could muster.

  “And what about Bella? She is too weak to follow the army. She won’t last...”

  “I have signed for a carriage from the commissariat. They were most understanding of the circumstances and doubly concerned at Mistress Telling’s sufferings. For obvious reasons,” he added unnecessarily.

  The redhead’s mouth contorted as she struggled to hold her tongue.

  They had killed her husband and damn near killed her, is that what the great fleshy hypocrite was getting at?

  Matilda glanced at Bella but she didn’t seem to have registered a second of the dangerous interplay. She didn’t look as if she gave a damn what happened to her now.

  “She will travel with the commissariat, where the surgeon, under my instruction, can continue to attend her and speed the recovery your own kind ministrations have begun.”

  Telling seemed to grow into the room, blocking the sunlight from the window.

  She glared at him, all powerful now, triumphant. The very essence of male. And her, a miserable feeble woman, shoved back in her place. On her back for the Royalist rank and file. Tears coursed down her face, she couldn’t, wouldn’t stop them.

  Bitter and angry, ashamed she had given in, caved in like the Royalist foot at Naseby had abandoned their King.

  Like she had abandoned her Queen.

  Matilda choked back a sob. Bella looked lost, hands folded in her lap. Nothing to say for herself.

  “My dear, do you think you can walk to the waggon, or should I carry you?”

  Telling leaned over, opened the cottage door. Paused.

  Bella turned her head, watched him straighten up, his fleshy features crumpling like an ill-baked loaf.

  The doorstep was blocked with soldiers in red coats. And a grinning, unshaven officer in grey trimmed black.

  “Evening your reverence,” William Sparrow doffed his hat and bowed low, keeping one eye on his quarry. “And how’s the patient?”

  Part Three

  Taking the Waters

  “The General was at this time much troubled concerning his march further West before Bath and Sherborn were reduced, reckoning a service of importance to take Bath in order to the straightening of Bristol and hindering Prince Rupert from raising any considerable force in that area.”

  Rushworth, Historical Collections

  By the New Model Army encampment, near Stonehenge, July 1, 1645

  Well here they were again, happy travellers all.

  Eagleton’s tent - within whistling distance of the army commanders. A termite mound of febrile activity without which the New Model would have struggled to exist much past breakfast time.

  The palid, black suited interpreters in chief of Parliament’s wandering will.

  Although the committee of both kingdoms had loosened Black Tom’s reins in the weeks before Naseby, it hadn’t let him loose entirely. A cartload of instructions, entreaties and petitions followed the army like weasels after a three legged rabbit. March here, march there.

  Sir Thomas Fairfax had won a staggering victory almost too magnificent to believe, but that didn’t mean the House would entrust him with the overall direction of strategy.

  There were other enemies, north, south east and west. The question was, who would they confront first?

  The army, mindful of the struggles of their comrades in arms in the far West, had flexed their muscles once more, loudly insisting they must march to the relief of Taunton. The Somerset town had been besieged by the King’s forces for six weeks and more.

  For once, the army, its high command and the Committee of Both Kingdoms had been in agreement.

  Taunton must be relieved. The King’s armies in the far West smashed piecemeal, before they could be concentrated against the New Model on anything like equal terms ever again.

  *************************

  Telling, Bella and Sparrow were avoiding each other’s glances while Eagleton busied himself with his chests and papers as if parchment and ink could fortify his remaining strength.

  He’d barely slept since the battle, organising a thousand missions of his own and ten times as many again for his military and political masters.

  “We are obliged to you for appearing at such short notice,” he began, “and trust our unworthy goodwill gesture goes some way to ameliorating the harm which has befallen you as a result of the unruly elements within our army, during the late battle and its aftermath.”

  Aftermath?

  Why was he bothering talking to Bella? Sparrow thought it had all been decided.

  Telling’s clumsy attempt to smuggle her away to God knew where had left Eagleton to pick up the pieces of yet another potential blot on the New Model Army’s already fractured reputation.

  And this time, he had excelled himself.

  “Captain Sparrow, Minister Telling, Mistress Telling,” Eagleton opened his arms, “make yourselves as comfortable as you can.”

  No chairs, loaded tables, rifled chests. It was trampled grass or remain standing.

  It wasn’t exactly a tart’s boudoir, Sparrow thought darkly.

  Telling looked more discomfited than either of them. And so he might.

  Sparrow recalled Telling’s contorted expression back at the Phelps farmhouse - trampled this way and that as if the entire Royalist army had used his face as a stepping stone. He had gone through the whole gamut of Old Testament emotions in the trackless seconds he stood defeated in the doorway.

  Surprise, rage, jealousy.

  Aye, in truly Biblical proportions and all.

  If
he had been able to conjour plagues of frogs and locusts, Sparrow would have been a well-slimed skeleton by now.

  The captain of dragoons was still chortling about it three days later. Not in front of Telling though - you couldn’t tell how this less than convincing man of God might react given the crosstides and eddies which swirled behind those watery, protruding eyes.

  Telling wasn’t the only individual in this man’s army content to embrace the superficialities of his calling, without taking anybody in for a moment.

  He had been called in that evening though, aye, and brought back to the fold. After two whole days being left to stew in his own juice, Sparrow thought with malicious satisfaction.

  The captain smiled smugly, turned his wandering concentration back to the matters in hand. Better pay attention or he might miss some unexpected nuance of the commissioner’s double-edged mission.

  Telling looked blank.

  Bella, bruised battered and bandaged, looked sour and suspicious. She’d barely acknowledged her old friend William.

  Aye, and hadn’t that hurt, Sparrow remembered, less happily.

  The times they had shared, the happy returns he had anticipated. And it had been as much as Bella could do to return his smile.

  Sparrow realised he had missed another of Eagleton’s frowning explanations.

  Better pay attention, he was an officer now. He had a role to play in this mummery, however unlikely the parts assigned.

  Returning hero, unexpected saviour, spurned lover?

  They all knew much of the exchange was pure pretence - it was a question of how the commissioner cut the cards.

  How many more times did Eagleton need to explain his artfully constructed plan?

  Twice, as it happened.

  “Master Sparrow will escort Mistress Telling and diverse other wounded to take the waters at Bath.”

  Well that was the plan.

  Or plan within a plan. It wasn’t as simple as the wily clerk insisted, that was for sure. Sparrow had only been given half of it, Telling less than that. Bella, hastily convalescing, barely enough to keep a cat happy.