Cromwell's Blessing

by Peter Ransley

  As he disappeared into the wing, that pride was overtaken by a violent rush of other feelings. Anger at his duplicity. Rage at my stupidity, at being fooled by him: If you find it in your heart to forgive me … And I felt fear, too, as I thought of him coming to my house and talking with Luke. Fear above all. Fear of the mercenaries’ faces. Fear that something was happening that was beyond my control. I went to try the door. It was locked. I was about to shake it, kick it impotently, when I heard a rasping sound outside. I bent down to the keyhole.

  A man, sleeping on a chair in the corridor, was lifting his head, air hissing through his ruptured nose. I crept away from the door. Think. Think. Knife. They had taken it and my belt. Think.

  A soft breeze came from the window, carrying with it the sound of men’s voices. They were giving water to the horses. Some were splashing it on their faces; although it was early, it was already warm. There were about twenty of them. One, who must have been the second-in-command, saluted Richard, who walked towards the house. He took off his hat and fanned his head. His hair was thinning into the beginning of a bald patch. He scratched it, teasing hair over the patch. After he passed underneath my window, he disappeared into the house without ceremony. There were a number of comings and goings. The door must be open. Think.

  Below me was a sheer drop to a flagstone path. My head spun as I looked down. I searched the room, finding only a heavy candlestick which might be of use to me, and which I stuffed down my jerkin.

  I wriggled through the casement window backwards, gripping the edge of it while my feet flailed for the stone ledge. The cornice was depressed like a shallow balcony and I switched my grip to an elaborate stone carving. More in hope than belief, I had imagined I could reach the next window on the same floor. But, being smaller than mine, which occupied a Dutch gable, it had just a tiny ledge. I stretched out my foot. My muscles were at breaking point, but I could only touch it with the toe of my boot.

  As I drew back, panting, I glimpsed the flagstones beneath me. Last night’s meal, and the taste of congealed fat, rose in my throat. I shut my eyes and pressed my forehead against the stone. I stretched out as far as I could towards the smaller window, then jumped.

  My left foot landed on the ledge. The right foot scrabbled uselessly at the wall while my hands grabbed at the column at the side of the window. A nail broke. I clung on, wriggling my left boot along the narrow ledge, so I would be in a position to swing my right boot on to it.

  Before I could complete the manoeuvre footsteps rang on the flags below me. Richard’s second-in-command strolled along, whistling cheerfully. My arms felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets. The soldier stopped to answer a greeting from the ostler coming out of the stable yard, who called him Jan. The candlestick I had taken began slipping slowly down my jerkin, wriggling like a snake against the leather. I released my grip on the column, snatching out for the column on the other side of the window, lost it, clutched it lower down and swung my right foot on the ledge, trapping the candlestick with a grating clatter against the wall. Jan stopped whistling. My breath sounded so loud I was certain he must hear it. The man stared all around, scratching his flaxen hair. Finally, he walked towards the house, taking a sealed message from his pocket.

  I waited until I had heard him enter the hall. I wrapped my handkerchief round the candlestick and broke the window. Finding the catch, I eased back the casement and wriggled through, dropping to the floor, sweating and retching. I must have thrown up what remained of the foul stuff Challoner had given me, for my mind cleared and sharpened. The room was much like the other, except the hangings were green and depicted hunting scenes. From the corridor came a familiar sound: a rasping, strangulated breath, punctuated by snoring.

  He was sprawled in the chair between me and the landing. He gave a whistling sigh and shifted his position. I gripped the candlestick, ready to strike, but his eyes remained closed as I stepped over him and hurried across to the landing.

  I slipped down one flight of stairs. On the next I almost cannoned into a maid carrying sheets. She stared at me, startled. I picked up a sheet she had dropped, smiled sympathetically and said, ‘We’re giving you a lot more work, I’m afraid.’

  She took the sheet and gave me a small curtsey. On the next landing a soft breeze freshened the damp, stale air. The front door was enticingly open. From Sir Lewis’s study came the murmur of voices. I crept down the stairs. Another second, and I would have been out of the house, but my father had a mesmerising, rich voice which carried.

  ‘Dangerous? My son?’

  ‘You acknowledge him? You call him that?’ Sir Lewis said.

  ‘My father does. He uses him. He’s used him against me since he plucked him out of that rat-hole.’

  A servant approached. I ducked down in the stairway. The servant knocked at Challoner’s door and took in a tray of small beer. Challoner was wiping his red, sweating face. When the servant left, Challoner told him to leave the door open to let some fresh air in. Challoner was facing the hall. I dare not move. If he looked up, he would see me.

  ‘I’ll deal with my son when this business is settled,’ my father said.

  ‘No, sir,’ Challoner responded. ‘I have him. And a considerably increased offer from Lord Stonehouse to cooperate with him.’

  ‘You can rely on me to match that offer when we have the King, and I am sitting where my father is. In three days our forces will be raised and we will have the King.’ My father smiled. ‘And who holds the King, holds the country.’

  Sir Lewis was drawn in by my father’s eloquence as much as I had been. It was supported by something even more potent than his voice. Money. Real money. Not figures on paper, warrants or promises, but coins, rattling, jingling, pronouncing their solid worth as my father stacked them on the table. At first I thought it was for Sir Lewis but it became clear it had another purpose. It was soldiers’ pay. This – my father’s hand corralled a section of coins – was for Colonel Wallace’s regiment.

  This for Colonel Floyd’s regiment … This for … Some of the coins must have been the ones I had seen in his belt at The Pot. What had he called himself? A humble messenger for His Majesty? Humble messenger! He was the King’s Paymaster. His mission was to extract money from reluctant City merchants who supported the King, to speed the break-up of the New Model Army so Holles could seize power.

  I was so hypnotised by the sight of the money and my father’s voice that I failed to hear the man who had been guarding me until his breath was rasping in my ear.

  I was trussed up like a chicken and a dirty rag thrust in my mouth. Sir Lewis wanted to kill me. I had heard too much. My father stopped him, not from any affection, I gathered, but for fear of Lord Stonehouse, who knew I was here. I heard it in my father’s voice, that quiver of fear shooting through his words, as once again the mercenary carried me upstairs. That fear, my only protection, would not leave my father, I thought, until the King was back on his throne and Lord Stonehouse in the Tower.

  16

  Three days. Three days and they would have the King. The figure echoed in my head as I was punched almost insensible by the mercenary before he flung me on the bed in the red room. This time he sat with me, smoking a clay pipe. Bitter thoughts lacerated me, along with the ropes cutting into my wrists and ankles. I winced as I remembered boasting to my father about the strengths of the New Model Regiments. By giving away the strengths, I had exposed the weaknesses. He had learned which regiments could be broken up most easily, by persuading troops to go to Ireland – including mine. It was what I used to drum into every junior officer. Never talk. Whenever you open your mouth, you give something away. I groaned, which brought me another punch from the mercenary.

  When I came round it was even hotter. A fly buzzed, then crawled over my cheek, greasy with sweat and drying blood. The fly kept returning, and I was so tightly bound I could not get rid of it. Another joined it. The mercenary yelled to a passing servant to bring food and drink. Later, he sh
outed from the window to the other mercenaries who were riding off. The house became silent. The mercenary grew tired of abusing me and sucked at his clay, adding a bubbling sound to his grating breath.

  I could work out my father’s route precisely. Like my father did, I held the maps in my head. Middle England. It was ground we had both fought over for five years. And now Richard was paying off regiments that might stand in the way of his snatching the King. After going to Colonel Wallace at Dutton’s End, he would ride through Hertfordshire, crossing the Great North Road near Sandy. Colonel Floyd’s regiment was based at Bedford, less than a day’s march from the King. The Colonel was not a Presbyterian and did not sympathise with Holles, but the money would split Floyd’s men and reduce the capability of his fighting force. I did not know what Richard planned to do then, but I could guess.

  He had letters from the Queen. She would certainly have raised support with the French, and through them with the Scots. Charles was held at Holdenby nominally by Parliament, but the commander of the small garrison, Major-General Browne, was a strict Presbyterian who had never fought in the New Model and was believed to openly defy it. Whether Richard planned to take the King to Poyntz’s northern army, controlled by Holles or the Scots, I did not know. Holles would throw up his hands in horror and say he knew nothing about it, but, on top of his Parliamentary majority, he would have the King; and, as my father put it, those who had the King, had the country.

  This gloomy conclusion made me twist and writhe in fury at my stupidity. I succeeded only in cutting the rope deeper into my raw and bleeding wrists. There was a knock at the door and a maid said, in a trembling voice, she had brought the food. The mercenary was taking no chances of losing me a second time. He told her to put it outside, then waited until her footsteps retreated before unlocking the door and bending to pick up the tray.

  There was a whirl of movement. The tray went over. Something hit the mercenary like a cannonball, knocking him to the floor. I rolled over on the bed, twisting up my head, and saw it was Scogman. In hurling himself at the mercenary he had dropped his knife. The mercenary kicked it away, grabbed Scogman and pulled him to the floor. He had a bull-like, tenacious strength, squeezing Scogman to him while he drew closer to get the knife. I watched helplessly. His breath was like a saw, rasping louder and louder with the effort. Another moment and he would have the knife. I rolled myself to the edge of the bed. The toe of my boot caught in the coverlet. I thrashed frantically, hung suspended for a moment, then fell.

  It was as much the surprise as the force with which I hit the mercenary that allowed Scogman to pull himself away, snatch the knife and bring it up into the mercenary’s throat. I rolled away as the blood jumped from him. There was a gasp from the doorway, as the returning maid gaped at the scene. Scogman clapped his hand over the maid’s mouth, choking off her scream, turning her face away from the mercenary’s pulsing blood. I could see why he was good with women. Even with his hand clamped round her face, he was gentle, his voice soothing.

  ‘You saw nothing. You heard nothing. Do you understand, Jane?’

  She stood mute, nodding mechanically. She had a marked resemblance to Mary, the chambermaid at The Cart Overthrown. A voice shouted from downstairs.

  ‘Is Sir Lewis there? Jane?’ Scogman shook her, but even then gently, as if she might break.

  ‘Gone to the prison. To see you.’

  ‘Ah, yes. He would have. To see me. Of course.’

  The voice shouted Jane’s name again, coming closer, up the stairs.

  ‘Tell him you upset the tray. That’s all. Quick!’

  She did so, mechanically, and the voice retreated, grumbling. Scogman helped her pick up the pieces and put the tray in her hands. Only then did he take the knife to the rope round my wrists.

  ‘You were supposed to rescue me, sir,’ he said reproachfully.

  We had banked on Stalker believing that, since I had delivered Scogman so tightly gagged and bound, it would be superfluous to untie and search him. We had not anticipated the leg-irons. Scogman told me I had scarcely been gone an hour when Stalker opened the cell door.

  ‘He couldn’t stand me without leg-irons, sir. Against regulations. Scarce had time to get to the knife you had hidden on me,’ Scogman said in aggrieved tones. ‘It was close. But I left him in the leg-irons he’s so fond of, in his own cell with his playing cards for company, for Sir Lewis to find.’ He pulled out a bunch of keys and threw them in a hedge. ‘Take a blacksmith to release him.’

  Impossible not to laugh with Scogman. Impossible not to feel a lift of the heart as we put Byford Hall behind us and rode down a lane walled by high hedges, frothing with white May blossom. But my gloomy thoughts soon overwhelmed me. My first impulse was to ride to London. But even if I could convince Cromwell, by that time the cavalry he could normally rely on would be nullified. Richard would have snatched the King.

  We reached a crossroads. One road would take us to London, the other to Dutton’s End. The May flowers had a cloying smell. The only sounds were from the bees buzzing between them and my horse cropping grass in the ditch.

  ‘Permission to speak, sir?’ I had forgotten Scogman was there. He was looking at the sun. ‘Regiment musters at one to pick the party for Ireland.’

  It was noon, or just after. Better to do something than nothing, and at least try to prevent one small part of the army from breaking up. I nodded and got on my horse.

  ‘You seem out of sorts, sir.’

  I was tempted to unburden myself, but what was the point? He would not understand. Whether he was a rogue or not, I could not decide. He was certainly ingenious and resourceful, but it was confined to the narrow world of breaking into people’s confidences (particularly if they were women) and thereafter into their houses. Beyond that he had no thoughts. Parliament? If he thought about it at all, it was as one more body to outwit, rather than another. But as we rode on, and he kept giving me darting, inquiring glances, I outlined the situation in as simple a way as possible, expecting him to shrug indifferently.

  Instead he reined in his horse. ‘You mean Parliament’s lost, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought Parliament had won?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I knew he would not understand – understand that Holles, who, since the first battle at Edgehill, had wanted peace at almost any price, would give too much power back to the King; that the King would eventually return to dismissing Parliament as and when he pleased. Scogman checked his horse. He had a battered, decrepit, wide-brimmed leather hat which had once belonged to a dead Cavalier. He took it off and scratched his head.

  ‘You mean all this was a waste of time, sir?’

  I followed his gaze. ‘All this’ was a ruined castle, whose bricks littered the countryside. Wheat was growing, and animals grazing, but everywhere you looked the scene was pockmarked with the scars of war: a burned barn, a shattered cannon, trees chopped down by soldiers living off the land, and a pile of bones bleached in the sun from a dead horse they had eaten.

  ‘I lost some good friends,’ he said.

  I thought of my best friend Luke, dying in my arms at Edgehill. I had named my son in memory of him. So many others had died I had grown inured to it. We were on the brow of a hill from which we could see down into Dutton’s End. What was left of the regiment was filing into the church hall. I could just pick out Will, near to the tall figure of Sergeant Potter, chivvying the men into the hall, like animals driven into market, to be bartered, sold, slaughtered.

  ‘Is there nothing we can do, sir?’

  ‘It’s the way of the world, Scoggy.’

  ‘Is it?’ He was punching his plundered hat as if the head of the Cavalier was still inside it. He found the slots in the hat where the dead Cavalier would have once inserted an ostrich plume, and put there a sprig of green laurel. I had no idea then it had any significance, and thought he was merely fooling about.

  ‘Come on,’ I said irritably. ‘At least we might save t
he regiment.’

  ‘Oh, we might be able to do more than that, sir.’

  ‘I told you! I can’t ride to Cromwell, gather soldiers together and get to Holdenby in time!’

  ‘George has a troop not far from there, sir.’

  Something in his voice made me check my horse. ‘George? Who the hell is George?’

  ‘George Joyce,’ Scogman said. ‘He’s a cornet in Fairfax’s cavalry regiment. Knows Holles. Best way one man can know another, he says – he’s measured him. He was ’prenticed to Holles’s tailor. Nasty piece of work, Holles, George says. Temper as sharp and knobbly as his knees.’

  I turned away. A tailor. A cornet – the lowest-ranking officer in the army.

  ‘He worked with Major Rainborough to secure the army’s train of artillery at Oxford in case Parliament – Holles – ordered them north.’

  I grew very still. That tallied exactly with the information Lord Stonehouse had given me, except he did not identify who had seized the train.

  ‘George has five hundred horse drawn from the same regiments chosen to guard the King – because they had Presbyterian Colonels. But these men are for Cromwell.’

  I swallowed as my voice came out as a kind of croak. ‘Where – where are these men?’

  ‘Bedfordshire, Northants borders. About fifty miles from Holdenby. Waiting for Joyce to join them.’ He had put on his hat, and the shiny deep-green laurel leaves caught the sun.

  It was possible. Just possible. To get to London. Cromwell. Ride back. Two days. Just possible. ‘Who is giving Joyce orders?’

  ‘He is.’