Gideon's Angel

by Clifford Beal

  No, the problem was my mistress. She was far too sharp a pin to be fooled so easily as the Cardinal. Of my plans to fight the Spaniards, lavishly embellished by my yearning for the saddle, Marguerite drenched these with scorn. She knew that my regiment was staying put around Paris for the time to safeguard the king and she called me the bigger fool for thinking she would believe such a shallow ruse. So I changed tack, telling her that I would be going farther afield, to Germany, Denmark and Sweden, to find my comrades of old. She, better than anyone else, knew how the death of Andreas had shaken me. But this too fell upon stony ground and was met with a shriek of desperate outrage.

  “You would leave me the discarded whore then?” She shook her head as if to answer the question herself. “No, you shall not buy me off with such a tale either, my love. There’s more to this change of heart than mere soldiering, I swear.” And she paused a moment, her eyes big and wet, before turning away. But then she turned back, looking at me hard. “You’re returning to England. That’s your clever plan, isn’t it? But why?”

  I stammered that she was wrong but she cut me off with an accusing finger.

  “No! I shall guess it, sir. I shall puzzle it out, for I know your heart better than you do.” And then a slow, grim smile crept onto her plump face, now bright pink with anger. “You’re going home. You’re going home to Devon. To find your wife and children.” She was nodding now, and quickly closing the ground between us as we stood in her little bedroom. “Memento mori. That’s why you’ve acted the baited bear these last days.”

  I could say nothing, and the colours fluttered down from my mast.

  “You would leave me here alone to this drudgery,” she said, “with my father returning in a few weeks to find I have been carrying on with you?”

  “It’s time for me to go home again, Maggie. That’s the truth of it. And I don’t know what I shall find there.”

  She seized me hard by the arm. “What you shall find? You shall find the end of a rope! You’ve told me that many times before. How could you think of such a mad adventure? You’re no longer some mooncalf of a boy.”

  I moved to touch her cheek and she slapped my hand away.

  “No emollients, sir! Your path is chosen and you’re abandoning me to the laughter of the magpies here at court. And to face the shame of my father—alone.” Those brown eyes had a strange glow, high-stoked rage and adoration mixed, enough to unsettle me. At that moment, she was poised to offer either a curse or a kiss.

  I took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake as she tried to twist away from my embrace. “It is you who has my heart and no one else, woman! But I must return while there is still time to do so.” Marguerite ceased her twisting but would not look at me. “There are things that must be done there, things that cannot wait.”

  “Then I shall travel with you.”

  “It’s not safe there for you.”

  “And it’s safe enough for you? You speak nonsense. Was it not you who told me before Christmas that the people would grow tired of Parliament’s edicts and Cromwell’s roar? ‘Spit them out’, you said. So wait!” She moved her hands to my neck. “Wait upon it, my love.”

  “I cannot. This must be done. But I promise you I will return.” And I could feel her form sink inside my arms, the fight gone out of her.

  “Then go if you must,” she said, her voice steady. “But just as you know not what waits for you in England, you will not know what awaits you here when you return. Nothing in this life is certain except its ending.”

  Chapter Five

  AT SEA, THERE’S time for contemplation even when the weather blows hard, lifting a vessel high and shaking it like some enormous mastiff would a rabbit. At times, I wondered if my life’s labour would have been more rewarding had I become a sailor. Now, with little to do all day or night on the four day journey from France to the Devon coast, my time for quiet reflection was double-fold. And I had put it to good use, wrapped in a thick woollen cloak in my tiny cabin, kept company by a little tin carrying stove, stuffed with glowing coals from the forecastle galley fire.

  The list of secret contacts that Lord Herbert had given me, I still worked to commit to memory, so too the false names that each was assigned for the purpose of corresponding. Herbert became ‘Mr. Carson’, Baron Gerard’s cousin, Colonel John Gerard (already burrowed into London town) was ‘Mr. Jeffreys’ while the king himself was always referred to as ‘Mr. Underhill’.

  All the king’s ciphers had each been broken in turn these last two years by Parliament men in the Post Office. It seemed pointless to tempt them again with yet another code, mathematical or otherwise. Ciphers or not, I had little faith in a letter ever ending up in rightful hands and so I resolved to pen not a single word to my co-conspirators.

  Staring out of the leaded window of the stern cabin, its panes crusted with salt spray, the roiling grey sky and even darker sea moved in and out of view. Why in Christ’s name was I undertaking such a foolhardy lark? The chance to smite Cromwell was the bait, but something else drove me as well.

  I had never been much of a husband, I admit. Returning from the German wars I had married in haste, eager to become the man of commerce to equal my older brother William. But the war with Parliament had quickly put an end to that dream. I had foolishly penned a letter to friends in the Danish court at the insistence of the king’s advisors, suggesting the Danes aid us against Parliament. Intercepted after the battle at Naseby, it was enough to crucify me. The trial by combat was my plan, but had it not been for my brother’s help to get the army to agree to it, I would be dead by now. As dead as the king I had served.

  For the last eight years, I had been pulled back and forth in the swirling currents of Mazarin’s many fights in France, losing sight of all back in Devon. I had to return, to see once again those I had abandoned. I still did not know what I could do to alleviate my wife’s suffering, though I was carrying a fat purse to deliver to her. But I would not be able to reveal my presence. Would my children even remember me?

  Having beat our way up the Channel, clawing against wind and tide along the Normandy coast, we turned about and dashed northwards across to Plymouth. We made landfall on the twentieth of March and for the first time in many, many years, my eyes beheld the green of the Hoe and the rolling countryside beyond against a blue sky. We pushed along nicely under near full sail, whitecaps breaking all around, and slowly the land became larger and rich in relief. The spires of Plymouth hove into view and then the warehouses of the quayside down at Sutton’s Pool.

  It was only then that the practical concern of disappearing unseen into England came uppermost to my mind. I had taken what precautions I could: I carried no sword (only a small Scottish dirk) and wore no heavy boots, but instead, shoes and grey stockings. My dress was sober, my linen of Flanders lace. My hat, except for its black ribbon, was high-crowned and plain. My belongings were few and carried in a large sack: more clothing, a few small German books, and my copybook for my trade. All unremarkable, or so I hoped.

  Slow headway around the old barbican, and then a gentle glide into the harbour. We touched in with just a bit of foresail and nudged by a lighter that stood at hand to help. And in short time I was down over the side, gingerly onto the dock, and finally once again on English soil. The first countryman to address me there was a Plymouth militiaman, sullen and stinking of stale beer.

  “You—old man! Where is your pass?”

  A group of redcoats, more militiamen by the look of them, also stood nearby, gathered around the master of the ship. And the officer, papers waving in his hand, hollered down to my interrogator.

  “He’s a trader from Bruges, you dolt! Let him pass!”

  The militiaman waved back, cursing the officer as he did so. He turned to me and handed back my satchel that he had snatched. “Well, so long as you’re not Dutch... sod off then. Go on, be off.”

  I nodded and walked on up the quayside and towards the cobbled square that led towards the Exeter Road. I
watched a troop of dragoons enter from the other side, no doubt on their way to the quay, their mounts in a slow walk. Without a second thought, I moved closer to the houses, away from the centre, but did not alter my pace. My eyes instantly set upon the officer who led the dragoons. What struck me was how very young he was. He was hatless, and his close-cropped straw-coloured hair and deathly pale complexion made his eyes all the more blue, large and penetrating. He affected no beard or moustache; his shirt collar lay open even in the stiff March air. Unlike his troopers, dressed in their claret kersey wool coats, this man wore a sombre grey suit and black cassock, his figure made military solely by his large brown riding boots, pulled up high to his thighs, and his buff shoulder belt from which swung a good-sized sword.

  I watched his face as we drew closer, about to pass on the square. There was something familiar in it, though I knew well we could never have crossed paths. Surely he would have been just a stripling when I fought at Naseby those years gone by. I felt that I ought to know him, and before I could help myself, I realised that I was staring. And then, his eyes met mine, only for a few seconds, before I turned my head down. It was long enough. He continued on, but the glance had near upon stopped my heart. I winced as the dangling silver talisman in my shirt caught and plucked a chest hair.

  I was afraid to turn around and kept walking up out of the square to where I remembered Breton Side was, the better to find an inn. Plymouth had changed little in appearance from my vantage, the brown and black houses and streets and stables all the same. But the townsmen were not as I remembered. Their faces were pinched as they went about their business; a fug seemed to hang over all, a weariness that had sapped the place of its life. Over all there was a heavy silence. And Breton Side should have been a scene of bedlam, whores beckoning sailors to their arms. But there were none to be seen.

  By the time I reached the lolling shingle of the Bell and Tun, I was more confused than when I had stepped off my ship. I pushed the door inwards and stepped inside the tavern’s front room: low, dark, and hazy with blue smoke, which suited me well enough. The place was as lively as a funeral. I spied a few townsmen at the large table, smoking and drinking their beer. Near to the fire, a few sailors joked and sipped their rum. The scent of their salt-drenched jackets carried to me even across the room. This would do.

  After I procured from the landlord a room the size of a cupboard, I shifted my little doglock pistol in the waist belt that lay underneath my coat. Downstairs, I took a can of ale and sat myself in the back to take in my surroundings and puzzle out what I should do next. As I walked past a wall, I caught a glimpse of myself in a little reflecting glass hanging there. My whiskered face, black haired and streaked with grey, stared back at me. It was a far cry from the neat little mustachios and chin fluff I had worn at the court in Paris. The ale soothed my fears by the time I had drunk down the last swig and the innkeeper, keen as always to pick up something new, engaged me when he refilled the cup.

  “Just come in have you... from afar?”

  I again tried to sound just foreign enough to a Devon man’s ear to make the ruse but not come across as too much a queer duck. “In from France, yes. I hope to find some good merchants here to supply me in Worsted yarns.”

  The innkeeper nodded as he poured the bitter stuff from the jug. “You sound farther afield than France, I might say, though I admit you make good enough of the English tongue.”

  “I am German,” I said.

  “Aye, that would s’plain it, it would. Fancy some grub? I’ve got some roast pig that’s up. And you’d consider yourself damn’d lucky to taste it after ship’s fare, I should think.”

  “Perhaps later. Tell me,” I asked before he could shuffle off again, “where is all the trade gone today? I expected to see more by way of commerce since coming into Plymouth.”

  “Where has all the trade gone?” he said with genuine surprise. “Probably where all the fish have gone, I should think, yes indeed. And there’s the war. And there’s—”

  I took a long swallow of the ale. “A good many soldiers too,” I said. “Led by some golden-haired fellow, not much more than a boy.”

  “You seen Major Fludd today then?”

  “He seemed a very young man. A major you say?”

  “If it were him you saw. Commander of our dragoons hereabouts. Gideon Fludd.” And he grinned and nodded, half to himself. “Sharp young buck. Suffers no fools. I stay out of his way, I does.”

  The landlord turned as another patron barked for more drink and I was left to my own thoughts again. Gideon Fludd was preoccupying me more than I liked but I could not figure why. I was sure I had never seen him before but still something tugged. I intended to avoid him and his dragoons at all costs, keep to the shadows, and be quickly on my way to visit house and family. Lord Herbert had told me to search out a certain gentleman when I arrived at Exeter, most likely to be found at an alehouse, the Bishop’s Mitre. This fellow was a local keeper of the flame so to speak, and it was in this establishment that meetings were often held and snippets of news exchanged. But I was in no hurry to get to Exeter, not until I had satisfied myself of what lay at home. The question remained: how would I approach my house and not be recognised?

  I suppose my face had become very sober at these passing thoughts for I heard a man hail me from another table at the back.

  “Why forlorn, Fellow Creature? Nothing be as bad as all that. Drink up with me!” And I turned to watch a youngish man, some mechanic fellow in a battered felt brimmer, raise his cup to me and then proceed to take a long swallow. Ale ran down the corners of his mouth and trickled down his unshaven neck and he slammed the cup down upon the table and rattled it as a signal for more.

  I didn’t know what to make of this rogue but I raised my cup to him in return. “Your health, sir!”

  He raised his empty vessel to me and smiled. “We can only be healthy in the knowledge that we are all loved of God, each and every one. From the lowest sheep-buggering, cow-fucking rascal to the dirtiest whore in Plymouth town. We are all in the grace! We are in the Likeness goddamn it, the bloody Likeness of God!”

  I watched the reaction of my fellow drinkers to this trumpet blast but the sailors only swore low and laughed amongst themselves while the landlord quite ignored the outburst. Drunkard, madman, or both, I knew not. But I had to smile at the boldness of this citizen of Cromwell’s commonwealth.

  “Laugh not! I am in earnest, sir. We are all saved no matter what the goddamned stinking prelates say. Goddamn Calvin’s fucking bones! And rot those who parrot his creed.”

  “Rest easy, friend,” I said, becoming alarmed at his rhetoric. “Have another drink with me.” And I signalled the keeper to bring another pot.

  The man smiled again and held his palm upward to reassure me. “I am in a fire of righteousness, sir, but don’t be put off by my prattlings. I am at peace with my Fellow Creatures.” He was not drunk, that I could see from his eyes, which focused readily enough upon the room. His lank greasy brown hair fell about his shoulders, framing a ragged face and a long nose, below which grew a wisp of a red moustache.

  “He’s a bloody Ranter,” announced the landlord as he set down the pots of ale shaking his head in disgust. “Just a Ranter.”

  “I am of the party called My One Flesh, sir, the one true church of these times,” said the clown, rising from his chair and, uninvited, taking one at my table instead.

  “I don’t care if you’re the Antichrist so long as you keep paying,” said the landlord, as he pushed up his soaking sleeves. “Ranters, Levellers, Diggers, Lord knows what they’ll send us next but we have enough sects these days to please everyone, I should think.” He shook his head again, as if long accustomed to this madness and returned to his bar.

  The young man winked and clinked his wooden cup to mine. “Billy Chard is the name, sir!”

  I had read the news of the Levellers over the years, and the Digger movement too, overheated radicals that believed in the abolition of
all private property. But Cromwell had crushed them a few summers ago once they threatened public order and the ruling Council. Ranters however were a party I had not heard of, but it seemed they were aptly named.

  Billy Chard looked harmless enough and since I had nothing better to do, I let him stay. “What is your creed then, if I might ask?”

  “It’s a simple one, Fellow Creature,” he began, leaning back and seizing his mug. “And now that we have shared a drink, what is your name?”

  “Andreas Falkenhayn... a trader.”

  “Aye, well, foreigner or not, He loves us all. Our creed is simple, sir. We are all made in God’s Likeness, each and every one. God is in all of us, He is. He is in this here chair, that pipe over yonder... the dog by the fire, every thing. Therefore... there is no such thing as Sin, no act to be ashamed of. Even that which is evil was fashioned by God. We are in a natural state born into this world.” He paused, as if waiting for my reply, but I was too amazed to say a word. “I shall now take a pipe of God myself,” he announced reaching into his stained leather doublet and pulling out a tobacco pouch.

  “We live in wondrous times, do we not?” I ventured.

  “Aye, Mr. Falkenhayn, that we do. And hard times at that. The country has gone to ruin now after the wars. And why the hell did I bother trailing a pike for Parliament? It got us nowhere.”