His Highness Prince Rupert knew in his bones there was more to this domestic conflagration than met his eyes, but was far too weary to trouble himself to drill down to the bottom of it.
He pinched his nose, chronically tired, his frayed temper dangerously stretched by these unlooked for domestic complications.
But if there was deception here, he couldn’t see it. If there was malice intended, he couldn’t guess from which direction the knife would come.
He gazed out of the window, a thousand glimmering candles dancing merrily in the closely-stacked homes and hovels beyond the castle. He smelt cooking fires, tanneries.
Thin trails of white-grey smoke snaking up from stacked and leaning chimneys. It reminded him momentarily of his long imprisonment in Austria, cooped up in an Imperialist tower like some naughty schoolboy while the Bohemian war graduated into the wider German war.
Which was still going on.
Please God his uncle the king would see sense before dragging the country down that road. To utter complete and total ruin.
His guests fidgeted and waited for the Prince to finish his extended study of the Bristol skyline.
Sir Gilbert Morrison - the serpent turned turncoat merchant who had dared to cross his path at Gloucester. The rogue could talk his way to China and had always been more interested in lining his own pockets than serving his rightful king.
But Rupert needed him as much as Morrison needed Rupert. He might not like it but there it was. Two years ago he would have had the rogue flogged around the castle. Now he needed to cultivate the few assets they had left.
Morrison had transformed various cottage industries into fully fledged manufactories, raising Royalist war production in Bristol from non-existence to rude health. He had turned the trade-starved city’s wharves and quays into hives of activity.
His simple but effective administrative skills had helped equip several thousand of the recruits arriving from Wales and Ireland, of that there could be no doubt or disguise.
Much of the equipment was shoddy - low grade breastplates which hadn’t proved pistol proof, poorly-seasoned pike shafts which drooped like celery. Ill-made suits of clothing which frayed and unstitched themselves like leper’s rags. Boots which
gaped like fishes mouths after a few miles’ march.
But the garrison had succeeded in turning raw recruits into soldiers, which was just about all they could hope for given the crippling lack of money coming in from the western counties. Morrison had made them soldiers from straw, air, spit and sweat.
And for once, the merchant had curbed his tongue, let Porthcurn do the talking. As if aware he wasn’t going to talk the Prince out of anything.
“..and so I advised the governor to detain the Roundhead delegation in the Bridewell, to which he agreed. They are there still.”
“So you have left half a dozen enemy troops, in Bath, in quarantine?” Rupert inquired, eyebrows raised.
“I did your highness. I left strict instructions with Sir Thomas Bridges they were not to be set loose, before we have directed otherwise.”
Bridges.
Rupert’s mouth puckered in distaste. A fair-weather wastrel if ever there was one. How dare he send his reinforcements packing like tinkers, with his master the King brought to such extremity?
“And you advised this, despite the fact we had signed and agreed their passage as far as Bath?”
Porthcurn held the prince’s dark eyed gaze.
“Given the state of the defences, and the reluctance of the garrison to admit the reinforcements dispatched by your higness’ own hand, I felt quarantine might be the soundest option in the circumstances.”
The Prince raised his chin, acknowledging the truth of that. Let Parliament’s scurrilous news sheets make of that what they will.
“And so, here we are,” he said flatly.
Rupert glanced at the merchant’s daughter. A notable beauty - or she had been when he had first made her acquaintance back in Gloucester. Hair shorn, arm bound, complexion half a dozen shades paler than he remembered her. The merchant’s wayward daughter had been released from the Queen’s service six months before.
So she had either proved less effective at gathering information as Henrietta Maria had hoped, or she was about a further unguessed mission on behalf of the Queen.
But if so, to what end? Could they possibly have hatched such a plot, with injuries such as these?
Whatever she and her dead husband might have learnt of his affections for the Duchess of Richmond, back in the woods outside Gloucester, the details seemed to have remained with them and them alone. The Queen had not obtained any further proof, not even a whisper, of his ill-advised liaison with the Duchess.
He had been treading on eggshells ever since, waiting for the day George Villiers - Duke of Buckingham and one of Rupert’s few friends at court - might have learnt something of the Prince’s strained affection for his legendarily beautiful wife.
The Duke had received no such word and had remained a sound friend - fighting Rupert’s corner against rogues like Digby despite his disasters at Marston Moor and Naseby.
Rupert remained in regular contact with the Duke by letter. He had urged him to use his influence, persuade the king to see reason and negotiate with the damned rebels while he had something left to negotiate with. Or for.
Their friendship would not have survived the whiff of scandal, but there hadn’t been any. In eighteen months.
Rupert stroked his heavily stubbled jaw. It followed, therefore, that Hugo Telling might have indeed been the desperately loyal servant he had always claimed to be.
If that were so, Rupert was guilty of a great wrong in refusing to trust him. In holding him close but no closer. In dispatching him to the baggage train at Naseby field like some Judas goat traitor.
And to add insult to injury, Telling had not survived the mad stampede from the battlefield – no matter who had delivered the fatal blow. Perhaps he owed his bruised and battered widow something after all.
He turned from the window, glanced at the unusually silent widow. A shadow of the vital life-force she had displayed eighteen months before.
“Madam,” he began, pausing to gather his wandering thoughts.
Morrison leaned forward, tilting his head as if he might miss some vital detail.
Rupert’s eyes flickered to the brother, this ranting chaplain out from Montagu’s regiment of the New Model.
It seemed to Rupert he’d strayed rather too far from his braying congregation.
The scowling man of God seemed to defy them all, daring them to question why he had chosen to accompany this heart-warming mercy mission all the way from Marlborough to Bath. And then, inexplicably, on to Bristol.
The merchant and his daughter returned safe if not well. But the brother, what on earth was he about?
Porthcurn had outlined the principal points of interest from his pantomime tour around Bath, but didn’t appear any more enlightened as to what this unlikely family reunion was about.
He guessed Morrison’s personal affairs were as hideously complicated as his majesty’s. But Rupert was too exhausted to get to the bottom of them now.
“I deeply regret your loss. Captain Telling was a valued officer, and saved me from death or worse at Marston Moor. It seems I too have lost - lost the opportunity to properly thank your husband for his many duties. As perhaps I should have done.”
It was the first time Bella had heard the mighty Rupert acknowledge Hugo’s service at all. His very existence for that matter. Hugo had bitterly resented being kept at arm’s length, no matter what service he had asked of him. He had never forgiven Hugo for tripping over his secrets, the feverishly imagined plotting outside of Gloucester’s wool-packed walls.
“I am glad to see you returned safe to your father and I wish you well. As for you sir,” he turned a red ringed eye on the reverend, “I perceive your rightful role in this mission is now at an end. I will sign an immediate codicil authorisin
g your return to your regiment.”
Telling looked startled. Sir Gilbert looked up, bright eyes flickering from one to the other.
“Your highness, I wonder if I might take the liberty of mentioning the crucial role Reverend Telling here, poor Hugo’s elder brother, played in rescuing my daughter from the clutches of those fiends at Naseby. And indeed, in her physical and mental recovery since then,” he began.
Rupert held up his hand as if he was warding off a blow from a poleaxe. He couldn’t afford a war of wits with the serpentine merchant. Not now. God knew he needed to sleep.
“I am prepared to accept the Reverend has indeed played his part, but I am unable to comprehend how or why we should extend his warrant here,” Rupert snapped.
“Of course I see and share that view your highness, but, how can I put this without embarrassment to all concerned…” the merchant began. “I conceive the reverend has formed an uncommon attachment, with my daughter.”
Telling, Bella and Porthcurn’s heads swivelled like crazed marionettes at the merchant’s apparently innocent observation.
“And it is an attachment I, for one, would welcome with all my heart.”
Rupert closed his eyes, waved his hand.
“There is a time and a place for such attachments. This is not it,” he declared. He wasn’t going to risk another few rounds with the merchant in full flow.
“I will have Reverend Telling’s pass signed and readied. It is inconceivable he should remain in a garrison belonging to his majesty the King any longer than strictly necessary, for whatever reason.”
Morrison knew he had played the only card he had.
Porthcurn and Bella exchanged glances. Telling stood like a statue, features cast in lead. His fists clenched behind his backside. It was that or lock his fingers around the merchant’s filthy neck.
“I am indebted to your highness, for your consideration,” he grated, a dribble of spittle leaking from his fearfully compressed lips.
Porthcurn matched him, aye, in bronze.
“I can detain my senior officers no longer. We have urgent matters of state which needs must over-ride all our domestic considerations, no matter how genuinely felt.”
He took Bella’s left hand for a moment, pressed it between his.
“Madam, I repeat, I am sorry for your loss and wish you better fortune. Please don’t hesitate to inform the garrison office if there is any further service I can deliver, if it lies within my power,” he added.
*************************
The merchant and his party were shown out, Porthcurn remaining with Rupert and his equally exhausted secretary, poised over a mass of correspondence, orders, counter orders. Bills of fare and letters of accusation. Lists of casualties and fanciful ration strengths from the surrounding forts and garrisons.
The Prince studied the Cornish officer for a moment. At least there was one solider here he could rely on.
“I want those reinforcements returned to Bath by tomorrow evening. It is essential we stiffen the garrison’s resolve. You will escort this Reverend Telling as far as the town gate and see him safely on his way.”
“I will highness.”
Rupert strode to the table, peered at the clumsily rendered map of the southern counties.
He had used chess pieces to represent the King, presently raising reinforcements in Wales, Goring, white knight, on Yeovil.
Last reports had his black knight - Fairfax - leapfrogging the New Model between Dorchester and Taunton.
He followed the erratic blue ribbon of the Avon back to Bath - one of the pawns scattered about his own castle of Bristol. Devizes, Berkeley, Nunney, Portishead and half a dozen other tiny garrisons holding out for the King.
He picked up a pawn, absent mindedly chewed the end.
“We need Bath to hold up any approach from the East,” he thought aloud. “While Goring manoeuvres between Bridgwater and here, to the south west.”
Porthcurn peered at the map, not convinced a handful of chess pieces truly reflected the disparity in numbers they faced.
According to Sparrow the New Model had twenty thousand men in arms.
It hadn’t struck Porthcurn as idle boasting either. You could read the Roundhead captain like an open book.
“We will rejoin with Goring, keep a strong field force in north Somerset, to screen the city. Fairfax won’t dare set siege to Bristol with a marching army hovering here to the west of the city, or off to the east here, where we can keep in touch with the King by boat.” Rupert traced potential rallying points, moved his pawns and pieces about the map.
He had taken charge of Bristol the previous fortnight, pledging his uncle he would hold the city for four months at least. Time for the king to rebuild his shattered forces in their south Wales strongholds before marching them back into the bear pit around Gloucester.
He had soon regretted his impetuous boast. Rupert’s impatient temperament was more used to setting sieges than sitting them out.
He would far rather have been freed from this millstone around his neck, take back the initiative in the field. He wasn’t even sure where he should place Fairfax’s chess piece army. Somewhere between the South Coast and the Somerset Levels, he imagined.
Goring must have received his orders by now, a clear direction to move his army north, back towards Rupert and his widely scattered garrisons. He had given him no room for prevarication. Goring would either obey his orders or he would answer to the King.
Goring could be back in the vital Avon valley in two days, three at most.
So long as he could disengage from Fairfax.
By Langport, Somerset, July 9-10, 1645
George Porter galloped back into the Royalist camp with the few dozen stragglers who had managed to outrun the apocalyptic rebel charge.
But if he thought he was over the worst he was sadly mistaken. They had been shot at from a distance by Goring’s nervy musketeers - a ragged-arsed forlorn hope covering the Royalist army’s straggling right flank. More Welsh recruits, barely off the boat from Cardiff before they had been thrust into Goring’s makeshift front line.
Porter had bawled the passwords and waved his hat, finally persuading the brittle rearguard to let the remains of his brigade pass.
His brother-in-law had been riding up and down in the midst of his over extended force, trying to shift the whole lot back to Bridgwater without conceding any decent ground to Fairfax, when he had noted Porter’s ashen-faced return.
What was happening to his right flank? Had every one of the rogues run?
The guards he had left to watch the crossings at Yeovil had fallen back on the main position the moment the enemy approached. Retiring to the long, low ridge which overlooked the Wagg rhyne with indecent haste.
Goring could hear musket pops and bangs away to the west. More terrifying still was the hellish vibration he could sense through the soles of his boots. The unearthly rumble of thousands of hooves to his immediate front, making the soggy Somerset ground vibrate like the skin of a drum.
The last time he had felt the earth groan like that had been at Marston Moor.
He had packed all but two of his guns, along with all his bag and baggage, away by first light, leaving him in command of odd pockets of musket, pike and horse strung along the moor like a steel-carapaced necklace.
The sight of his brother-in-law flogging his horse into camp at the head of less than fifty of his cavalry was not likely to improve Goring’s already foul mood.
He turned his horse in circles, watched Porter rein up and dismount, snatch a bottle from one of the passing servants as they hurried to clear the camp.
“My Lord…the enemy is upon us, from our rear. I fear we are surrounded,” Porter exclaimed, jamming the bottle into his mouth.
“Where are the rest of them?” Goring demanded. Porter shook his head, ran his lace sleeve across his mouth.
“Gone. Scattered or taken. Dawn yesterday, at Isle Moor, half way up the Taunton Road. Fairfax is
gotten around behind us sir, pretty well his whole force,”
Goring felt waves of rage constrict his balls, chest and head. His fists closed on his reins as if they were Porter’s loathsome innards. What had his sister been thinking of, marrying this fool?
Worse than a fool, an argumentative fool. An argumentative fool who had signally failed to fight his own battles.
“The entire command? You took a quarter of my horse sir,” the general accused. Porter snatched another bottle from one of his serving men, poured it down his throat.
These scoundrels would rob him of his honour.
“His whole force you say?”
Porter nodded eagerly. “Just so my Lord.”
Goring slumped in his saddle, jabbed his perspective glass at the plain to their front.
Porter turned, followed his gaze.
Beyond the Wagg Rhyne, past the rushes and willows, the herons and moorhens, stood the entire New Model Army.
Regiment upon regiment of horse stacked up on the plain like roof slates. The entire horizon was covered with troop after troop of Ironsides with barely room to swing a cat between them. In the centre, a regiment of musketeers with another, and another beyond them.
Officers and messengers were galloping this way and that, converging on a mass of colours clumped just behind the main bodies. The sunlight flashed, reflected on half a dozen perspective glasses busy studying his own position.
Porter swallowed with difficulty.
“I swear sir, there were thousands more behind us, out on the moor. They came at us from the rear, we had no chance…”
Goring waved his wrist in disgust. The Western army, overloaded with squabbling, greedy and green-eyed commanders, seemed to count as many officers as men. And each of them drew full pay, no matter how few he commanded.
The fact was he had dozens of regiments under command, all led by their own colonels and majors, captains and cornets. Whole troops of reformadoes who had lost their own companies and wouldn’t take orders from anyone that hadn’t suffered a similar demotion. An army chewed hollow by petty feuds and jealousies, riven by the constant bickering of its commanders.
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