“I don’t suppose he can spell the word.” Colonel Washington shrugged. “But he’s not a bad soldier.”
Sir George went back to the letter, reading it aloud. Fuller was not impolite. He offered safe conduct, even promising an armed guard, for Lady Margaret, her daughter, “and those other females of the household who wish to depart,” yet the letter singled out an exception.
“You have inn your midst one Dorcas Scammell, Wife to one of Mine Officers, and she wee cannot release. Her marriage was Witnessed before Almightie God, in Whose Cause wee fight, and this Warrant of Safe-Conduct depends Upon her Restorral to her Rightful Husband.”
Lady Margaret had one word for him. “Bastard!”
There was an unhappy silence in the long gallery. Campion felt the horrid weight of her past coming on her, as if the river of her life had carried her back to the mud of Werlatton. She saw the worry in Toby’s eyes, and she felt responsible for the carnage that was being wreaked on Lazen Castle. She turned to Lady Margaret. “You must go. You must.”
“You’ve lost your wits, child. I might be persuaded out by Lord Atheldene, but not by some cobbler from Bedford. Colonel Fuller, indeed! If you think such a man can frighten me from my home, you are very much mistaken.”
Sir George rubbed his eyes. In the new silence Campion again felt that this siege was her fault, that the seal about her neck had drawn the Roundhead forces to Lazen and had turned its peaceful acres into a place over which the gunsmoke drifted and in which men were daily buried. She sat down, her face troubled, but Sir George smiled at her. “It’s not your fault, Campion. They would have come anyway.” A crackle of musketry sounded from outside. He looked at Washington. “Can we hold them, Colonel?”
Colonel Washington nodded. “I think so, Sir George, I think so.” His fingers tugged at his gray moustache. “We’ve deepened the trench between the Old House and the moat and I think we can flood it tomorrow. I think we can hold them.”
“Of course we can hold them!” Lady Margaret looked imperiously on the group. She needed only a chariot and spear and she would have personally scoured her enemies from about her house. “Two more deserted yesterday! They’d hardly be deserting if they thought their own side was winning!”
Colonel Washington nodded. “That’s true, your Ladyship, very true.” Two Roundhead gunners had come to the castle at night, as other deserters had come before, risking the sentries’ musketry, to come safely into the defenses. Very few men had deserted the other way, a sure sign that the soldiers themselves believed Lazen could resist siege. The two new deserters were, so Colonel Washington said, scoundrels both, but experienced gunners were always welcome and the two men manned one of the murderers that threatened their erstwhile colleagues.
Sir George tamped tobacco into his pipe. He, like the rest of the garrison, was rationed to two bowlfuls a day. “I think Campion should leave.” He waved down his son and his wife who had both begun to talk. “Campion’s enemies are here and we no longer have Harry’s protection.” He turned his mild eyes to Colonel Washington. “I think she might get through their cordon by night?”
It was Campion’s turn to protest, but she was quietened. Sir George smiled ruefully. “If they capture you, my dear, then I suspect you may no longer have grounds for annulling your marriage.”
The thought was horrible. It chilled her. She saw the anger come on Toby’s face. He looked at Washington. “You say we can hold them, sir?”
Washington nodded. “There’s no guarantee, not in war. They might stay here forever! They’ve been at Corfe since God knows when. If Miss Campion can get out, then she should.” He paused because the Roundhead guns to the south had fired. He waited for the echo to die then looked at Toby. “Would you take her?”
Toby shook his head, unhappy with the course of the discussion. “I must stay here. I can’t leave my men.” Toby, as a Captain, commanded one quarter of the garrison. He shrugged, hating the moment. “James could take her. If they can get into the woods above the road, they’ll be safe.”
James Wright, the son of Lazen’s blacksmith, knew the country about the castle as well as any man. If any man could take Campion through the enemy lines, it was he.
Sir George smiled at her. “I don’t want you to leave, my dear.”
“She must,” Lady Margaret announced decisively.
Colonel Washington looked out of the window. “It won’t be tonight.”
Somehow the sentence shocked Campion. She did not want to leave, she did not want to be thrown out into the world, yet if she had to go then she had not realized it would be so soon.
Toby grunted. “No cloud?”
Washington nodded. “It’ll need a dark night. There’s too much moon. Will Wright agree?”
Toby nodded. “He’ll be happy to do it.” He smiled at Campion. “Jamie will get you to Oxford.”
She would become a fugitive, driven from this haven by the seal she wore about her neck. She could not escape it, her life was inextricably bound with the golden jewel, yet she wondered how long she would have to run from her enemies. They had followed her to Lazen, they were about to drive her forth, and she pondered whether there would ever be safety while she wore the broad axe of St. Matthew about her neck.
She sat with Toby at dusk, holding his hand as the sun sank in dazzling splendor above the water meadows, touching the looping Lazen stream with scarlet. There was no cloud. He smiled at her. “You won’t go tonight.”
“I don’t want to go.”
In the village a trumpet announced the evening duty. Soon, Campion knew, she would see the patrols in the water meadows, the new guards going to the sentry posts that surrounded the castle. Tomorrow night, if there was cloud, she would have to be smuggled past those sentries by James Wright. She leaned her head on Toby’s shoulder. “I don’t want to leave.”
His hand stroked her cheek. “I don’t want you to.”
The rooks were loud across the stream. She stared at their ragged flight. “Perhaps we should never have met.”
Toby laughed. His face was deeply lined, his eyes tired. He took little sleep now. “Do you wish that?”
She was silent a moment. Her cheek rubbed against the leather of his jerkin. “Perhaps we’re not meant to be together.”
He pushed her away from him, turning her face so she was looking at him. He smiled. “We’ll be married before the year’s out.”
She leaned against him again. She was unhappy. The river of her life was gathering speed, she could sense it sweeping her away from Toby and carrying her into a new darkness, a clouded darkness, and she was afraid. “Hold me.”
Her right hand clutched the golden seal, clutched it as if she wanted to crush it out of existence and thus release her life from its thralldom. With a last, triumphant blaze of red light, the sun died in the west.
“‘Clouds and darkness are round about him: Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.’”
The voices of young men were strong in the dusk, chanting the psalm. The preacher, Faithful Unto Death Hervey, stood on the wagon-loading platform of Lazen’s mill and raised his hands at the troops in the mill field. “Louder! Let the enemy hear you! Louder!”
The voices surged. The men grinned. They were happy, united by the metrical beat of the psalm, confident that the Lord was with them.
Ebenezer Slythe, standing where the great water-wheel clanked and dripped, its blades weed-grown and dank, listened to the noise. It uplifted him, exalted him, made him know that God was truly with Parliament. He liked being with the army, liked the smell of leather and horses, the sight of strong men. He was feared, as a man who worked for Parliament should be feared, and no man mocked him for his shrunken, twisted leg.
He limped into the miller’s house, the sound of the psalm still filling his head with glory and righteousness. The girl, a miserable wretch who had been found in the woods, smiled at him.
“Get out!” He scowled. He needed her at night, but her fawning wish for approval annoyed him at other times. She was a sin, of course, but Faithful Unto Death had assured him that some men were so burdened by God’s responsibilities that they were granted special privileges by heaven; did David not have Bathsheba? Within days he would discard her, because in days this siege would be over.
He sat at his table and reflected on the coming success. He had sent two men into the castle, gunners who were ostensibly deserters, but who were in fact sworn to him. They would fire the castle’s magazine at their first chance. They were ordered to do it when the morning trumpets sounded in the Roundhead lines and Ebenezer prayed that they would do it soon. Let it be tomorrow! He had waited with excitement this very morning, praying that the great flame would explode over his enemies, but the dawn had come as usual. Colonel Fuller, the man sent by Grenville Cony to take over the siege from Lord Atheldene, had given his opinion that perhaps the two men had been detected and imprisoned. Ebenezer had given Fuller his coldest smile. “Is the Lord not on their side?”
It was the clinching argument. Colonel Fuller had not been able to reply.
Ebenezer had discovered power, and the knowledge of it filled him with the same glorious excitement as the chanting of the psalm. Even Colonel Fuller, a hard, grim soldier who fought with a sword in his right hand and a Bible in his left, treated him with deference. Fuller had let Ebenezer reply to the letter of truce from the castle, had acquiesced humbly when Ebenezer had dictated how the castle was to be taken. Ebenezer spoke with Sir Grenville’s authority, and his demands that the new part of the castle was not to be damaged, and that Fuller’s men were not to interfere with his activities in the fallen castle, had not been questioned.
Ebenezer had power.
Tomorrow, if God willed it, he would have the Seal of St. Matthew.
And tomorrow, when Samuel Scammell was dead, Ebenezer would be the legal holder of St. Matthew’s Seal, receiver of the monies passed from Sir Grenville, and the thought of the income filled him with excitement.
He would use the Covenant. He stared at the millpond through the window, watching ducklings trail busily behind their mother, and thought of his plans. A third force was rising in England, a force that threatened to defeat both King and Parliament. Ebenezer could hear that force now, hear it in the strong, virile voices of the young men who prayed as hard as they fought. They hated the King, they hated the Royalists, but they hated the Presbyterians of Parliament almost as much. They fought for Parliament, but Ebenezer knew they would never consent, after victory, to be ruled by Parliament. Presbyterianism made heaven into a lottery, and it was not to the taste of these Independent Puritans.
Sir Grenville had sided with the Presbyterians. Ebenezer would not. He would bide his time, and in time he would give a strong, harsh voice to the demands of the common soldier. It was the common soldier who carried the sword and the gun, and it was the sword and the gun that would make England holy. And it was the Covenant that would give Ebenezer the power to make his voice heard.
All was prepared for the morning, whichever morning it was to be. The men Ebenezer had hired as his own troop knew what was to be done. Samuel Scammell, in whom Ebenezer detected reluctance, was nevertheless obedient. Most of all, Faithful Unto Death Hervey and his new housekeeper, Goodwife Baggerlie, knew what was expected of them. They were rehearsed, ready, and their actions would bring the day of the Lord closer.
Sir Grenville Cony did not expect the castle to fall till the end of the month. That was good. Tomorrow, beneath the smoke from his explosion, Ebenezer needed just a few moments with the seal that was rightfully his. He did not know where those moments would lead, he knew only that he must prepare himself for the time when he would have to destroy Sir Grenville, as he planned to destroy his sister, and as he would destroy anyone who threatened the Kingdom of God he saw flowering in England.
He raised his voice. “Girl!”
She came in, her face pathetically eager to please.
Ebenezer limped to the bed and lay down. “Lock the doors.”
He closed his eyes. He would not open them or speak till she was done. His brain was filled with the emblazoning splendor of his vision as the darkness fell softly on the Lazen valley.
Seventeen
Campion’s cat, Mildred, usually woke her before dawn, pacing to and fro on the covers, licking her exposed face with its rough tongue, purring loudly in her ear or forcing its warm, soft fur against her neck. “Go away, Mildred.”
The cat interpreted any words as affection, redoubling its efforts to rouse Campion. “Go away, Mildred. It’s too early.”
Yet, coming into wakefulness, Campion knew that it was not the middle of the night. She could hear the sound of boots on the castle yard and knew that the garrison, as it did each morning, was standing to arms. Every soldier was on the ramparts at least an hour before dawn, and it was a time when Campion liked to be up. She stroked the cat’s reddish fur and then hugged her. “I might not see you again. No! I must go away, Mildred.” The cat purred louder than ever. “You don’t care, do you?”
She dressed quickly, putting a bonnet over her drawn-up hair. She would not dress properly or set her hair until the morning was half over. Mildred went to and fro between her ankles, rubbing her body against Campion, demanding to be fed. “You’re supposed to catch mice, Mildred, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
She dressed in a plain gray dress. She could hear Lady Margaret next door ordering Enid to open the curtains and the sound made Campion pull back her own. The sky was still dark and she could not see if there were any new clouds. Mildred protested and Campion stooped to stroke the cat. “You really don’t care, do you?”
She opened her bedroom door, releasing the cat which sped away down the corridor, heading for the kitchens downstairs where, along with a dozen other cats, she would be fed and watered. There was not enough milk for the cats now. Campion followed more slowly.
She liked the dawn. She liked to walk on the dew-wet lawns and greet the soldiers who peered into the darkness across the moat. She would sometimes go into the church and kneel in the Lazender pew, saying a morning prayer for the safety of the garrison, adding a special prayer for Toby beneath the stone memorials of his ancestors. It was a quiet period of the day, a time before the big guns would begin to spread their dirty smoke across the meadows, a time when there was a semblance of peace at Lazen.
“Miss Campion?” It was Captain Tugwell looming in the darkness.
“Captain.”
“And a pleasant sight you are this morning, Miss Campion.” Tugwell, a small man, forced jollity into his voice. “Did you have a quiet night?”
“I did. You?”
“There’s not a lot happening. They were quiet all night.” Tugwell’s silhouette nodded toward the lights of the village. “They were moving early this morning, but that’s probably their new man, Fuller. A new broom, Miss Campion.”
“I expect so.”
Tugwell hitched his sword belt higher and thrust his brass-hilted pistol further into its holster. “Captain Lazender’s at the gatehouse ruins, Miss Campion.”
“I know. Thank you. I’m going to the church.”
“Say one for me!”
She smiled. “I will.”
She saw the faintest strip of pearl-gray light limning the eastern horizon. The trees of the great woods were outlined by the first appearance of dawn. She hesitated by the church porch, unwilling to exchange this first token of day for the gloom of the chancel.
“You’re up early!” It was Mr. Perilly, Lazen’s vicar.
“Mr. Perilly!”
He was coming from the church. A candle was lit inside, revealing him as he came to stand beside her. He sounded downhearted. “Another window gone.”
“That’s sad.”
The Roundheads had been trying, with increasing success, to shoot out the stained windows with their musket fire. Anything that was beautiful and ded
icated to God gave them offense. Each depredation of his church made Mr. Perilly more gloomy. “I’ve swept it up as best I can, but there’s still a lot on the floor.” He sighed. “The rain gets in, you know.”
“I know.”
He stood beside her, staring unhappily at the sheen of light on the moat. “I hear you’re leaving us, Campion.”
“I’m afraid so. James is taking me, if it’s dark enough.”
Mr. Perilly shook his head. “It’s dark enough. Darkness throughout the land, Campion. I don’t understand it, I truly don’t. God tests his servants, but I sometimes wish we could be more certain of the outcome.”
A cock crowed in the stable-yard. The sound seemed to shake Mr. Perilly from his depression. He smiled. “I’ll see you at matins?”
“Of course.”
“Be careful on the south aisle! It was the window of the raising of Lazarus. Quite destroyed! Quite destroyed! And there’s no one who can do work like that nowadays! We can only destroy, it seems, only destroy.” His gloom was returning.
The explosion came.
At first Campion did not know what was happening. It seemed as if the ground shook, a small quiver that startled her, and she saw the moat, that had been silver and quiet, suddenly ripple with small, urgent flickerings of pre-dawn light.
Then there was thunder, the growling of rocks, the sound of ancient, massive stones moving and splintering, and then the great keep, whose stones had dominated Lazen for four hundred years, was lit by a spike of fire, a sheet of flame following, and then the noise came properly. It shattered the air, it fled outward across the valley. It hammered at the defenders.
“Mr. Perilly!” She seized his arm.
The keep was boiling flame and smoke now, a cauldron of fire that spewed its foul cloud over the valley. It reminded her of Samuel Scammell’s burning yard, only this smoke seemed to erupt at far greater speed. There were new explosions now, smaller, but each one sent another flash of light to illumine the stones that toppled from the keep.
“To the house!” The Reverend Perilly took her arm, pulled her over the lawn.
A Crowning Mercy Page 25
