by Smith, Skye
"It's a good copy,” Archie told him, "so I will turn the pages to save it being stained by greasy fingers. Tell me when you have finished reading the first page."
At least this copy was in English. Daniel stumbled through the first ten words, and then skipped halfway down. It got worse. It was legalese and references to acts of parliament. "So just one page, right, and the rest of these pages are signatures?"
"Oh no. There are no signatures on this copy. Eventually it will have only one, that of Charles Stuart."
"Uh.... it's a bit long and I'm a bit tired. Could you just tell me what it says in about five sentences."
Archie seemed disappointed that someone didn't want to wade through a dozen pages of his careful handwriting and praise him for his eloquence.
"Umm, well. Perhaps I am too close to the work to describe it."
Alex came to the rescue.
"It says that the Scottish Kirk has been organized according to the Bible and to God's will to remove all Papist corruption and liturgies and is therefore already perfect. Any changes to the Kirk by Kings or politicians or laws would thus be against the will of God. They call on the King to be a subject of the true king, King Jesus, and serve as the protector of the Kirk rather than as its head. To such a king the Covenanters who have signed the oath, pledge their loyalty."
"The wording is very complex in its crafting,” Daniel said to the author, "as if it were hiding something. What if the King does sign it? What will he and his lawyers have missed?"
The two lords had been listening and now they guffawed, finally agreeing on something. "You see, Archie,” Montrose called out jeeringly, "If it makes a foreign captain suspicious, then what hope do you have of gaining the King's signature, whether your fine words hide trickery or not?"
"If he signs it,” Alex whispered directly into Daniel's ear, "then the King gives up any hope of ever being an absolute ruler. He will have made an oath to God to be a subject of the Scottish Kirk with the duty to protect it, but never lead it. In front of King Jesus, his soul will weigh the same as any peasant."
"So does this covenant stop the practice of privileges and honors being inherited rather than earned?" Daniel asked. For a year Daniel had been thinking about the politics of kings, and he had distilled it all down to one thought: when privileges and honors are inherited rather than earned, they cause corruption and incompetence. And why shouldn't such things always be earned?
The Lords went deathly quiet at such a suggestion, but not the lawyer, Archie, "You may as well ask if it does away with the inheritance of estates." He shrugged his shoulders at such foolishness. It would mean the end of the growing need for lawyers.
Alex tried to stop Daniel from saying more by offering him more Genever, but the ploy didn't work.
"Now that you mention it,” Daniel replied, "why not? Since this covenant of yours wipes away the imported Popish religion, why not also wipe away the Popish way of controlling productive land? The Papists stole great estates away from the common wealth. Revert them to the common for the betterment of all. Your covenant would thus end poverty."
You could have heard a pin drop, so Daniel continued.
"Isn't that what King Jesus would do? What he would want you to do?.... umm ... umm... Oh dear, I've forgotten the reference in the Bible, but before the Papists arrived most of Britain was common land." Not that he had ever read the Bible, but he was sure there would be a likely reference somewhere in it.
For once the lawyer held back his quick wit and made fleeting, worried glances towards the Lords. Daniel shrugged at Archie’s silence. It meant that he was right, but that no one in power in Scotland would ever admit it. Not so long as armies were led by aristocrats like Argyll and Montrose, and so long as politicians were chosen from amongst the wealthy by the wealthy.
These two huge armies now facing each other across the River Tweed were typical. Both were led by aristocrats who had inherited titles and privileges and land. Land stolen from the common by legal trickery or armed terror. Whatever the outcome, the aristocrats would still be well-fed and privileged, while the real folk would be made to pay for the mistakes of both the winners and the losers.
"Every man in our army is a Covenanter," Archie told him. "Will you sign my Covenant, Captain?"
"I am not of the Scottish Kirk and I have not joined your army, sir,” Daniel replied with a thicker Dutch accent, "so no, I do not wish to sign your covenant." Daniel groaned to himself. Would someone please get him away from this Christian nutter? "Besides, it seems to be yet another writing of men who claim it is the writing of God."
His words earned Daniel a jab in the ribs from Alex Leslie's elbow, but the Lords enjoyed a good laugh at Archie's expense. Archie asked, "So if not a Presbyterian, what is your Kirk? Are you a Dutch Lutheran or a Dutch Calvinist? I hear that there is peace between them only because the Papist army is on their border."
"Neither. I am an Anabaptist,” Daniel said, resorting to what he told all Christian nutters. Archie and the three Presbyters went suddenly quiet, stood, stared at him as if he had horns, and excused themselves from the table.
"That is convenient,” Alex said to Argyll, who would not doubt be wondering why the other table had just excused themselves right before the serving of sweet meats. "That leaves only military men at the table. Shall the Captain and I move to your table? I think he deserves an explanation about what is happening along this border." The two lords agreed, but only after Alex had told them that it may have an effect on the price of the muskets.
It took the general mere moments to explain the current situation of the two armies. The King's army was camped along the River Tweed near Berwick, but had not yet crossed the Tweed into Scotland. The Covenanter Army under Argyll's command was camped along Blackadder Water north of the Tweed, waiting for the King's general to decide where and when he would cross the border. Once the King's army made their move, the Covenanters would then rush forward to block the invasion. Neither army had moved since setting up camp, weeks ago.
Daniel groaned, for he knew what this standoff by giant armies would mean to the locals. The farms all about would have been picked clean, the farmers in hiding with their families, and nothing planted. If the standoff did not end soon, then there would be nothing to harvest in the fall and the farms and villages would starve this winter. But of course, the plight of the folk was the furthest thing from the minds of either of the aristocratic politicians who were drinking his Genever. To them, the local folk were just beasts of burden to be lorded over.
Daniel ignored the sweet meats in favour of more fresh meat, while these aristos gorged themselves and helped themselves to his pin of Genever. The company at the table was genial enough, and he learned much from listening to the banter. For instance, unlike the King's army, the Covenanter army was paying for their provisions, not stealing them. The Scottish Parliament had voted the army enough coin to hold the King's army at this border until the winter storms drove them back south. That could be as soon as October this year, because winter seemed to be starting earlier and earlier.
"So what is Charlie waiting for?" Daniel asked. "Were I he, I would have made the push to Edinburgh a month ago. How many cavalry did you say he had? Five thousand? Nothing could stop them."
"King Charles has spent his reign partying with his favourites in his many palaces. He has raised this army but his skill at leading armies is untested,” Montrose replied. "It is the only thing I admire about our King, for his reign has been peaceful. His army is ramshackle and ill-equipped and lacks training. His cavalry, though numerous, is made up of the second and third sons of the nobility who volunteered out of boredom with the hope of running down and slaying more than just the foxes. Already they've shagged rotten all the women on the other side of the border."
Argyll interrupted Montrose before his tale became even bawdier.
"The King must have hoped that the very act of marching this huge mob towards the border would cause us to concede. Sinc
e we did not concede, now he is forced to turn them from a mob into an army, and that is what his is doing, and why he is waiting on the other side of the Tweed."
"Just like us,” Alex slurred. "The only trained men in our camp came with me from the continent. We learned our trade protecting the United Dutch Republic from Papist armies. Those muskets you sold us, friend, could very well be some that we captured from the Spanish a decade ago."
"They could be," replied Daniel thoughtfully, "for I buy them from battlefield gleaners. The Dutch and Germans certainly don't want them. They scorn them as being old-fashioned. They even scorn the new ones as being inferior to their own. Germans are like that. If it's not made in Germany, they don't want it." He turned to Argyll. "So while the King is training his army, what will you do? Retreat or train?"
"Yesterday,” Argyll told him, "I would have answered 'Retreat', but that changed the moment your ship touched shore with those guns. Now we can train."
Alex moaned. "I keep telling you. We still do not have enough muskets. Not when facing five thousand horse supported by three thousand muskets. We would all be slaughtered in the time it would take us to reload."
"So how is the King training his musketeers?" Daniel asked the field general rather than the political generals.
"In six lines,” Alex replied, with a slight slur to he words. A Genever slur. "Five re-loading and one firing. Our spies tell us that the practices do not go well because the men are too slow at reloading. They've been issued with brand new Spanish matchlocks, rather than guns that have already been through the wars."
"Ah, I see,” Daniel replied.
"What do you see?" Argyll woke up a bit, afraid he had missed something.
"Officially, Spanish muskets must be made with a full four-foot ten-inch barrel. Their length makes them clumsy and heavy. Clumsy to load and heavy to hold an aim. They come with forked canes to rest the muzzle on. Hand a new Spanish musket to a battle-hardened mercenary and within the day he will have a full ten or twelve inches sawn off the muzzle by the local smith." Daniel stroked his itchy two-weeks' growth of seaman's whiskers. As he did so he realized that he had been the only man at dinner not sporting a carefully groomed and pointed beard.
"So it follows then, that the King must have no seasoned musketeers,” Argyll said, "Good to know."
"Hmm, it seems to me,” Daniel said thoughtfully, "that you don't want to fight the King's army at all. That you are hoping for an early Scottish winter to push his army south."
"Of course we don't want to fight them,” replied Montrose. "Whether we hold the border or lose it to the King's army, the effect of the battle on Scotland would be the same. Either outcome would start a civil war of Scot against Scot for religious and political reasons. There is no worse war than a civil war. Brother against brother, neighbour against neighbour, clan against clan."
He looked around to make sure none of the servants were listening and then whispered, "My worst nightmare is that the King knows this and is counting on it. He is going to poke us and provoke us until he starts a civil war so that we Scots will slaughter each other. When we are tired of slaughtering each other, he will be welcomed back to Scotland by all sides in the hope that he will bring peace."
Daniel pulled Alex's chalice away from him and when he tried to grab it back, he told him, "Alex, I need you sober to listen to a story from the battles for the Dutch border. Eat something to soak up the aquavitae." At this, all of the men pushed away their glasses and grabbed at the food still piled on wooden trenchers in the middle of the table.
Once Alex was no longer slurring his words Daniel began his story. "On the Dutch border I rode as a Pistoleer, a mounted infantry skirmisher. You have seen my holsters and my dragons. I rode with a man called Robert Blake, who was a poor shot and a worse horseman, but I've never known such a mind for tactics. His conniving mind saved our squad time and again.
During one of the battles the Dutch regular infantry was hopelessly outnumbered by the muskets of the Imperial infantry across the battlefield. Four to one at least. Rob and I were being used as scouts, for we were militia, not regular army. When we reported these numbers to the general, Rob also told him another of his cunning plans.
The Dutch infantry were to load the first shot of their muskets with birdshot and lye and flour, as we Pistoleers do with our dragons. It's a load not meant to kill, but to blind. Everyone was to fire this mix as the first volley to create a smoke screen along the entire length of the battle line. The breeze was gentle and would float the acrid smoke towards the Imperial line.
Under cover of the smoke, the entire infantry would make noises like they were charging under cover of the smoke. While they were making this noise, they would be loading another blinding load. The Spanish, thinking we were racing towards them, would fire everything they had into the smoke. Once their muskets were empty, we would fire up another cloud of smoke and then charge them for real. Their advantage of the number of muskets would mean squat, for there would not be a loaded gun on the field."
"Interesting. Ingenious. Did it work?" Alex asked.
"No, er, yes, but not as we planned. We all followed the plan, and kept to cover while making noises like we were charging. On the true charge, we reached their line only to find that they were already retreating."
"I don't understand,” Argyll interrupted eagerly, "did their spies find out about your plan and warn them?"
"No, but they did lose all faith in their spies. After we fired our first load there was so much smoke that they thought that every one of us must have a musket, not just one in five, as their spies had correctly reported. They suspected treachery so they ordered a retreat from the smoke to regroup and wait for better information. It was supposed to be an orderly retreat, but we came out of the smoke so fast at them that it turned into a rout."
There was silence around the table. The lords were all looking longingly at their still full glasses and licking their lips. "I don't see how this story applies to us,” Alex said quietly, hoping not to be rude to his guest. "The thing is, we don't want to meet the King in battle at all, and a rout would cause the very civil war that we all fear."
"Use Blake's strategy, but not on the battlefield." Daniel explained. "Use it on your training ground instead. You told me that the King has spies everywhere. What if the spies saw a practice that made them believe that you had four thousand muskets instead of a thousand? What would the King's army make of that? I'll tell you what. That their intelligence reports were untrustworthy. They may not retreat, but it would certainly cause them to delay their plans. A delay is a win for you. Enough delays and it will be winter. What do you think?"
Alex's eyes turned narrow and cunning. "I could order the men to carve themselves an imitation musket. They all have knives, and there is lots of wood about to carve. A bit of soot to darken the pretend barrel and from a distance you wouldn't know."
"A good idea, but it may not be enough by itself. You say the spies are everywhere. They may have been watching us unload my ship and may have counted the carts. You need to spread some false news so that they are expecting to see four thousand muskets before they ever spy on your practice. Why not spread a rumour that the cargo unloaded at Eyemouth was just one of the cargos that was unloaded that day. That there were others besides."
"They would never believe it,” Montrose scoffed.
"Stop with the nay-saying. At least it is a plan,” Argyll scolded. "What if we make the rumour even juicier? Suppose it got out that thousands of muskets were being supplied by our Parliamentary allies in England?"
"No,” Daniel interrupted. "An English parliamentarian set up my original delivery. Such a rumour could cause him trouble in London. Deadly trouble."
"Then France. Thousands of muskets supplied by the French?"
"France. The muskets were from our allies in France,” Montrose repeated thoughtfully. "I like it. I like it a lot. Charlie is very suspicious of the French because they have often allied themselv
es with Scotland against the English. That is good, very good. In truth, such a rumour is worth spreading no matter what else happens."
"I agree. We have nothing to lose by spreading it,” Argyll pointed out, "yet much to gain."
"I know one more thing that will help it to work," Daniel said softly. "Why don't you buy the King's army a good drunk?" At the confused looks from around the table, he explained.
"Buy back the whiskey you offered me in payment for delivering the muskets, and I will ship it to Berwick as a gift to the English. Forty casks is enough to keep the officers and cavalry drunk for at least two days."
"Why would you do that?" Argyll asked suspiciously, "That will snuff your profits from supplying the muskets."
Alex was way ahead of him and trying to stifle his laughter. "Because the bugger is going to sell your whisky back to you and then sell the same stuff to the English. He gains the cost from you and the profit from them. I love it. If we time it right then the King will be overcome with bad news. He will be told that French ships are off his coast carrying four thousand muskets, and that his own army is fall down drunk."
"Aye, well I've finished my food, and you've finished my Genever,” Daniel said as he stood and gave a curt bow to his host, Lord Argyll. "And I am sure that you have many things to discuss that would be better done without me at your table. If I go now, there is just enough light left in the day for me to show some of your men how to fix a Jocklock to their muskets. Thank you for dinner, sir, and thank your cook for me."
Leslie watched the man stride out of the dining room of the Duns manor. He then looked around at the two Lords who were supposedly in command. In the broader issues of king, politics, and economy, these two Lords were part of the problem, not part of the solution. How was he expected to make strategic decisions that may cost many men their lives, with these two hypocrites looking over his shoulder.
