Strife Beyond Tamar

by Oliver, Marina

  STRIFE BEYOND TAMAR

  BY

  MARINA OLIVER

  Cornwall is remote, but not therefore isolated from the war in the rest of England. Kate, living in Saltash, is looking forward to marriage with Jonathan, and disappointed it has to be delayed when he joins the King's army.

  Then the arrogant Petroc Tremaine, owner of a ship which harasses Parliamentary vessels, sweeps into her life and insists Jon is not the right man for her.

  Kate longs to be safely married and away from his perturbing influence, especially when she discovers his suspicions about Jon and Jon's dislike of Petroc.

  As the war comes closer Kate and her mother go to stay with relatives in Fowey, and she sees more of Petroc whose family live nearby.

  Strife Beyond Tamar

  By Marina Oliver

  Copyright © 2011 Marina Oliver

  Smashwords Edition

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover Design by Debbie Oliver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  First print edition published 1977 by Robert Hale

  See details of other books by Marina Oliver at http:/www.marina-oliver.net

  AUTHOR NOTE

  There are dozens of battlefields dating from the Civil War, many of them in this most remote English county. When I was writing this novel we spent a family holiday in Cornwall, and I was able to visit the towns and battle sites featured – and many more! The family were very accommodating indulging me.

  I always try to visit specific locations for my novels. Though the towns have changed and expanded since the seventeenth century, the underlying landscape is the same, and with the help of contemporary maps I can hope to visualise what they were like at the times of my novels.

  STRIFE BEYOND TAMAR

  BY MARINA OLIVER

  Chapter 1

  'Bless you, Miss Kate.'

  Kate smiled at the old woman, whose wrinkled face creased yet more deeply as she handed the girl a basket of gleaming mackerel.

  'They be good this year,' she commented, and wiped her gnarled hands, knotted from years of working with cold wet fish, on her skirt.

  'Yours are always the best anyway, Maggie,' Kate responded. 'Your Tom seems to know where the biggest and tastiest are to be found.'

  'That he do.'

  Maggie grinned her appreciation and turned to attend to another customer, while Kate Anscombe strolled slowly along the quay, looking at the familiar busy scene. Soon she came to where another woman was selling lobsters, and she stopped, watching as a girl her own age was served. Then the girl turned away and seeing Kate came across to join her.

  'Have you the mackerel?'

  'Yes. And I see you have the lobster. Do you want to go straight home, Morwenna?'

  'No, let's not. I love watching the boats on the Tamar. 'Tis so much busier than the Fowey.'

  They strolled further along the quay and many heads turned to watch them, for they were a striking pair. Kate was slightly the taller, slender and graceful in her movements. She had long curling hair of an unusual red-gold colour, and huge green eyes that slanted just the slightest degree above her high wide cheekbones. Her nose, straight except for a fractional tilt that she maintained marred her face, was lightly brushed with freckles which deepened in colour every summer, to her annoyance, for the rest of her complexion was enviably pale and clear. A delectable rosy mouth completed the charming picture, and most observers, at least those of the male sex, were too busy admiring that feature and imagining the delights of kissing those lips to notice the determined little chin beneath.

  Morwenna Trevose was equally attractive in an utterly different way. She was dark and her straight hair obstinately refused to be curled, so that Morwenna in disgust plaited it and coiled it about her head, an excellent frame for features that resembled Kate's in all except the colouring. Morwenna had dark eyes, almost black, and an olive complexion. Her grandmother had been Spanish, and Morwenna had inherited her colouring. Kate had often envied her, while Morwenna in turn bewailed her fate and wished to be more unusual like Kate.

  'Most Cornish are dark, though I am more so than the rest with my Spanish blood. You should be too, for we are cousins and look alike otherwise!' she had declared crossly one day.

  'My grandmother was not Spanish, but English, and that is where my hair comes from,' Kate had laughed in reply. 'I could wish for an exchange too, but I fear we shall have to be content to remain as we are!'

  The river was busy this morning and they watched the boats plying busily to and fro into the port, or across the estuary to Plymouth.

  'Will you like living in Plymouth when you marry Jonathan Peyton?' Morwenna asked suddenly, catching Kate's hand in hers.

  Kate smiled. 'Why not? It is a far more exciting place than Saltash.'

  'Yes, but 'tis England! I have never been out of Cornwall. I would find it most strange. I hope that when my parents arrange my marriage it will be to a Cornishman!'

  'Plymouth is not so very different!' Kate said, laughing at her. 'Besides – ' she stopped suddenly, and Morwenna turned to her, to find her smiling abstractedly across the water.

  'Besides what?' she prompted.

  'I shall be with Jon, which is all that matters,' Kate said simply.

  Morwenna sighed. 'You are fortunate to know and love the man they have chosen for you. I hope I shall be so lucky.'

  Kate grinned at her. 'Uncle John and Aunt Phyllis would never force you to marry a man you could not love.'

  'No. But they are not like to choose one I already love!' Morwenna retorted sharply.

  'Aha! I sense a secret! Morwenna, I thought we swore always to confide in one another. Have you forgotten?'

  'There is no secret!' Morwenna protested, but she was blushing slightly. 'I do not love anyone, truly, Kate! What is the use, in any event, when girls may not choose whom to wed? It is just that I have sometimes seen and liked a man, and wondered what it would be like to be able to love and marry where I wished.'

  'I am fortunate, I suppose, to be able to love Jon. Of course, we have known each other all our lives, since our fathers have been partners.'

  'Have you never seen anyone else you might have fallen in love with?' Morwenna asked curiously.

  Kate shook her head. 'It has always been Jon. I have known for years that it was planned for us, of course, but he is so attractive I have always been in love with him, from when I was a little girl and he a hulking schoolboy!'

  'Were you afraid he would not wait for you?'

  'Yes, sometimes. There have been many times when I have wished the ten years that part us away! But the time has passed, and soon, probably after my birthday in November, we shall be wed. Long ago, Mother said that seventeen was the right age.'

  Morwenna, already seventeen, was silent, wondering why similar arrangements had not been made for her. When she had questioned her mother a year or so earlier, she had been told she was too precious to her family to be sent away too young. She knew she had been born after her mother had suffered several miscarriages and stillbirths, and was nine years
younger than her only brother, but it seemed an odd reason to her when many of her friends were betrothed at very young ages.

  She was not permitted to brood for long, as she heard her name called. Looking round, she saw Robert, Kate's younger brother running towards them along the quayside. He was with several friends, and they were whooping with glee as they came, leaping over the barrels and lobster pots that littered the ground and causing more sober folk to mutter in disapproval as they stared after them.

  'Kate! Morwenna! Come with us!' Robert called.

  'Now what is to do?' Kate asked resignedly, accustomed to her brother and his wild enthusiasms.

  'A recruiting officer! We're told he's at the Galleon. Are you coming?'

  'A recruiting officer!' Morwenna exclaimed in amazement.

  'Aye. I know not whether for King or Parliament, but it seems that war is close now!'

  He ran off after his friends and Kate set off after him.

  'Come, we must discover what this means.'

  'Do you think we ought?' Morwenna asked nervously.

  'Why not? I want to hear what he has to say!'

  'But there will be a crowd, it might be unpleasant!'

  'Pooh! What of that? You may go home if you wish, if you are afraid!'

  'I am not!' Morwenna protested, and Kate took her arm and squeezed it comfortingly.

  They followed the boys to the Galleon inn, to discover a small crowd already gathered there in the open space before the main door. A cart had been dragged near the door, and a man stood on it, haranguing the crowd. As they approached and could distinguish the words it became clear that he was attempting to win adherents to Parliament's side.

  'Will you let your liberties be taken away?' he shouted. 'The liberty to worship as you wish and not be forced into following popish rituals? Will you permit your freely elected Members to be hounded into prison because they try to maintain their rights? Rights your fathers and grandfathers fought for when they drove the Spanish Armada away from these very shores! Will you betray Drake, who stood yonder in England's defence, and the other brave seamen who risked all to preserve our freedoms? Are Englishmen so lily-livered?'

  Kate and Morwenna paused at the edge of the group beside the boys who had been listening for some minutes to the man. Robert turned briefly and grinned at them, then turned his attention back to the speaker who was trying to answer excited questions from the crowd.

  'Will it mean war? We trust not, for when the King sees what opposition there is to him, he will be forced to cease his warlike actions. Did you know he is attempting to raise troops who will march against his own subjects? He who promised to attend to our well-being in his coronation oath! Is it the action of a father to attack his children as this secretly Papist King is doing?'

  Kate heard Robert utter a snort of laughter, and glanced at him. Gleefully he pointed, and she looked up above the speaker to see a man leaning out of a window of the inn. He held a sword with a slim blade and was carefully hooking the tip of it through the buckle which decorated the speaker's hat. A quick twist and the hat flew away, halting the speaker in the midst of his denunciation of the King. He paused, glared angrily round, and then, following the laughing gaze of the crowd, looked up at the window.

  'A fiery warrior, powerless without a covering,' drawled the man in the window.

  The crowd chuckled, but the recruiting officer spluttered with rage and took a step towards the window.

  'I should not come nearer,' his tormentor said gently, waving the tip of the sword tantalizingly close to his nose.

  'You hide up there, cowardly like all the King's supporters,' the recruiting officer snarled, but before he had finished he had to leap backwards to avoid the other, who sprang lightly down beside him on the cart.

  'Shall we settle the country's differences now? 'Twould save most of the bloodshed you seem intent on.'

  He flourished his sword in the recruiting officer's face as he spoke, and that worthy retreated as far as the edge of the cart, struggling to release his own sword from where it had become tangled in his baldric. His challenger waited patiently, a smile playing on his lips, but when the sword was free he attacked swiftly, and within seconds had the luckless recruiting officer disarmed as the sword was twisted from his grasp and sent flying after the hat. The unfortunate man, seeing the reaction of the crowd, wisely judged he had no opportunity of gaining more recruits that day and hastily retrieved his belongings and disappeared behind the inn. The victor paused, grinning at the applauding crowd, then held up his hand for silence.

  'If there is war, my friends, I trust you will not support such rebels as he. The King needs all the good men he can command, to restore his authority and prevent the land from dissolving into chaos. With them there would be no order, unless it were imposed with oppression. And we do not desire foreign troops invading Cornwall, do we? Most of the Parliament men are as foreign to us as the Spanish were to our fathers and grandfathers. We will not allow them on Cornish soil!'

  Robert and his friends raised a cheer, and the man glanced across at them, smiling, as he leapt down from the cart. Then his gaze passed on to Kate and Morwenna, and his smile deepened. Deliberately he walked across to them, and the crowd parted to allow him to pass.

  'Greetings, Mistress Trevose,' he said quietly, and Morwenna stammered a shy response. 'I did not know that you were in Saltash.'

  'I am staying with my aunt,' Morwenna said quickly, blushing, and Kate looked at her, frowning slightly in puzzlement. But she was not allowed long for reflection, for the man turned to her, his eyebrows raised very slightly, and Morwenna hastened to perform introductions.

  'My cousin, Kate Anscombe. Kate, this is Mr Tremaine, a neighbour of ours and a friend of Nick's.'

  'Your servant, Mistress Anscombe. I thought I detected a resemblance to Mistress Trevose, though I had thought there could not be another so lovely as Morwenna!'

  Morwenna looked up at him through her long lashes, and he laughed.

  'Shall we drop the formality? It used to be Morwenna and Petroc. Have you forgot?'

  'That was when I was a child!' Morwenna said quickly.

  'Then I could, I think, wish you still were if that is necessary for you to call me Petroc! Though it might not outweigh the disadvantages!'

  Kate was eyeing him thoughtfully, wondering if this audacious man had been in Morwenna's mind when she had been talking of marrying a man she loved. He was certainly handsome enough to catch any romantic girl's fancy. Tall and broad-shouldered, his black curls framed a strongly marked face which was deeply tanned. He had brilliant blue eyes, and was clean-shaven apart from a jaunty moustache. She judged him to be in his mid twenties.

  Morwenna had laughed somewhat shyly.

  'Is there really likely to be a war?' she asked anxiously. 'Are you recruiting for the King?'

  'I hope there will be no need,' he answered soberly. 'But if we have many more such as that fellow, we shall have to take measures against the Parliament.'

  Suddenly he turned his eyes to Kate and became aware of her close scrutiny. He grinned down into her eyes. 'When I raise a troop, will you come as our mascot?' he asked softly.

  She coloured at the caressing tone in his voice, and was about to utter a haughty reply when she heard her name called. She turned quickly, and smiled delightedly at the man who was approaching.

  'Jon! Why, you are early! I did not expect you for an hour yet.'

  'There was little to do, and I came across early. Servant, Morwenna. What are you doing lazing about, Robert? I thought you would have been helping your father prepare the ship.'

  'He has told me to amuse myself, so I am not playing truant as you suspect,' Robert said, laughing, and dodged a friendly cuff to the ears before darting away with his friends.

  Petroc had remained at his ease considering the newcomer, and Jon turned to him enquiringly. They were of equal height and age, but there any resemblance ended. Jon was much slighter, and seemed, in Kate's eyes, gre
atly more elegant in his loose-fitting breeches and short gold-laced coat than Petroc in his buff coat and closer-fitting breeches. Jon's features were finely drawn, and his fair hair neatly and unostentatiously curled, while he sported a small, shapely beard which he was stroking with long slender fingers as he stood looking at Petroc.

  Morwenna hastened to introduce them and they chatted briefly before Petroc, with an impudent smile at the girls, bowed himself away, to be halted a couple of paces off by another acquaintance.

  *

  Jon watched, a frown in his eyes, then turned to Kate.

  'Come, Kate, my love, I will escort you home.'

  They set off and despite herself Kate glanced over her shoulder as they turned the corner of the inn. To her mortification she saw that Petroc was watching them, and on seeing her look back he kissed his fingers to her. Furious with both him and herself she increased her pace, until Jon laughingly asked her what was chasing her.

  She looked round, then laughed.

  'Oh, Jon, I am sorry. But we stayed so long watching the recruiting officer that we shall be late home, and mother will be annoyed. We were shopping for dinner, look!'

  She displayed her basket.

  'There is plenty of time, I was early. But I do not think you and Morwenna should have become mixed up in such a crowd. What recruiting officer is this? And what had that man – Tremaine, is it? to do with it?'

  ' 'Twas perfectly harmless! A silly man attempting to frighten people into rebelling against the King.' She laughed suddenly. 'But Petroc – Mr Tremaine, discomposed him so greatly that he disappeared!'

  'How is this? And how do you know him?'

  'He is a friend of Morwenna's. Tell Jon what happened.'

  Morwenna complied, but Jon did not seem amused.

  'Childish behaviour,' he commented.

  'It served its purpose,' Kate said sharply.

  'Why do you defend him?'

  'I do not! Oh, Jon, if you had been there, you would have seen the funny side of it!'