The Licence of War

by Claire Letemendia

  “What sort of a friend is he to you – asking you to lie to Council?”

  “It’s not entirely a lie, and God knows as do you, I’ve told many more egregious falsehoods. I’ll visit you later, Seward, and apprise you of the outcome,” Beaumont said, turning for the door. “Wilmot is to meet me at Christ Church, before the other members of Council arrive.”

  “Beaumont, wait. I had a letter from his lordship, your father.” Seward drew it from the sleeve of his robe and held it out. “His house has been occupied for Parliament.”

  Beaumont took the letter and read, chewing on his lower lip. “Written over a week ago. By now, the house may be in ruins.”

  “He says Purefoy is a gentleman—”

  “The war is no longer an affair of gentlemen.”

  “Then we shall have to pray that Gloucestershire will soon be liberated.”

  Beaumont threw up his hands. “My dear Seward, can’t you grasp the significance of our late defeat? Parliament has no more opposition in the southeast, and London is absolutely secure. When the Earl of Essex rebuilds his forces, he’ll march on Oxford. The King will be cornered into a defensive war, unless Prince Rupert can subdue the North and the midlands, and rush to his aid. Rupert has wrought miracles in the past, but he has the Scots to contend with, as well as Parliament’s northern armies. I suspect the King will be on his own.”

  “His Majesty’s Oxford forces could repulse an attack by Essex.”

  “If we hang onto our surrounding garrisons, but as it is we’re short of troops to provision them. I’d bet you money the Queen will be sent away for her confinement, and possibly the princes for their own safety. You should get ready to flee yourself. You’d be better off at Clarke’s house in the countryside, even if his part of Oxfordshire falls to Parliament. Would you do that for me, please?”

  “His Majesty is not defeated yet, and Oxford was retaken once before from the enemy.”

  “After the battle at Edgehill, but it wasn’t a rout like Cheriton. Oxford may endure a long and bitter siege. And in the worst event, His Majesty would have to flee, rather than risk death or capture.”

  “His death is not imminent, according to the horoscope.”

  “Yes, well,” said Beaumont, dubiously, “your visions may be more reliable than your astrological projections.”

  Seward frowned at him. “How do you mean?”

  “My double you saw is flesh and blood. Someone I know almost mistook him for me, in Oxford. And I may have heard about him beforehand, from Pembroke.”

  V.

  Wilmot was storming up and down by the closed doors of Christ Church’s Great Hall. “Council has been postponed, Beaumont. Forth is too gout-ridden to rise from his bed, so I’ve asked for us to address His Majesty in private. What’s the matter?” he said next. “You look as if you’ve had the wind knocked out of you.”

  “I have,” said Laurence; he had anticipated enemy troops at Chipping Campden, but he had not reckoned on feeling such a burning, visceral desire to protect his family. “My father wrote to say that his house has been occupied by Colonel Purefoy, of the Gloucester garrison.”

  They were interrupted by a cough; Digby was sailing along the staircase that led to His Majesty’s reception chamber. “Were you hoping for a royal audience, gentlemen? I doubt that His Majesty will acquiesce: he is very tired, and in no mood to hear your rants about his chief generals, my Lord Wilmot.”

  “He must, or lose the war,” shouted Wilmot. “Forth is a bloody invalid, and Hopton has himself to fault that he’s got no army left to command. I shall be bound to absorb the sorry scraps of his men into my Oxford regiments.”

  “Mr. Beaumont,” said Digby, “you should have counselled his lordship on the perils of slander.”

  Laurence took a pace towards Wilmot, whose hand was straying to the hilt of his sword. “Please, my lord, let’s ride for your headquarters.”

  “Why not settle our differences now?” murmured Wilmot, his eyes on Digby. Then he hesitated; an equerry in royal livery was clattering down the steps.

  “My lords, His Majesty requests a word alone with Mr. Beaumont,” the equerry said.

  “It appears that our case may be heard,” Wilmot sneered to Digby. “I’ll see you back at Abingdon, Beaumont.”

  “How very uncouth he is,” said Digby, as Wilmot swaggered off. “But what else can one expect from the son of a soldier of fortune ennobled only in the last century for his Irish campaigns. You have made a grave mistake, Mr. Beaumont, in transferring your loyalties to him. Good day to you, sir.”

  Laurence bowed to him politely, and followed the equerry upstairs.

  In the royal chamber, the Queen lay on a daybed, her arms draped over her rounded stomach. With her were Jermyn and a lady-in-waiting, though not her husband. “Sir,” she said to Laurence, after they had exchanged courtesies, “forgive me my ruse. Neither His Majesty nor Lord Digby knows of it, and no one else shall know of it, if we do not reach a solution to our problem. I am certain, however, that we shall. My Lord Wilmot is a friend to all of us here, and yet he has offended his king by threatening to impugn the conduct in battle of Sir Ralph Hopton. You are an astute man, Mr. Beaumont – you must understand that it is not in Lord Wilmot’s interest to levy his charge. Surely you can persuade him to refrain.”

  “I’m flattered by your faith in me, Your Majesty,” Laurence said, “but would not Lord Wilmot be more powerfully swayed by a direct address from one he holds in far greater esteem, such as yourself?”

  He noticed her glance sidelong at Jermyn; they had covered this issue. “There are some who perceive me as exerting too much influence upon my husband’s business,” she replied. “And I did not fight at Cheriton – and neither did Lord Wilmot. If you who did were considered responsible for assuaging his lordship’s fears as to the professional abilities of General Hopton …”

  “Mr. Beaumont,” said Jermyn, “we are depending on you.”

  The Queen extended her hand for Laurence to kiss. “A note from my Lord Wilmot would suffice, as confirmation. Bring it to us as swiftly as you can. And pray tell him that I have intervened for his sake, and cannot do so again.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Laurence; he did not like the Queen, but she had demonstrated singular diplomacy today.

  On the ride to Abingdon, he tried to shut out an insidious despair that had begun to colour his thoughts about everything, from the King’s fate in this war to his family’s predicament, to that of Isabella, and to his own situation. It was a mild, sunny afternoon, and all around him the countryside burgeoned with signs of spring. Yet as he veered his horse away from a line of treacherous mole hills that resembled little fresh-dug graves, he found himself contemplating death; and he wondered if men slain in their prime tasted any different to a worm than those who died peacefully of old age.

  “My lord,” he said to Wilmot, when he had explained Her Majesty’s request, “you must heed Machiavelli’s wisdom, and pick your battles. You went too far in your accusation, and you’re lucky she’s granted you a second chance with the King.”

  “He’s afraid of the consequences, should I press my charge. He knows my men would rally behind me.”

  “What’s more important to you,” asked Laurence, “winning a war, or humiliating an officer whose troops you’ll have to govern in your regiment? And why create more enemies in Council? Why prejudice your friendship with the Queen, and the marriage that she’s helped to arrange for you?”

  Wilmot was silent, tugging on his moustache. At length he said, “Mark my words, Beaumont, it’s the last time I’ll compromise my honour and my integrity as a general, or as a man. And in future, I insist that you stand by me as my friend, even if you think I’ve picked the wrong battle.” Laurence watched over Wilmot’s shoulder as he scribbled a paragraph, signed his name, and set his seal on it. “Mawson can take it to Oxford. You and I have some drinking to do.”

  VI.

  Sentries waved the shabby, bearded pedd
ler through the Hackney Road fortifications without troubling to search his basket of ribbons, threads, pins, and needles. Price passed as unremarked through the Cheapside crowds and westwards along Paternoster Row towards Ludgate. But when he got to the Saracen’s Head, as a precaution he sneaked round to the kitchen door, which was propped open for the benefit of the cooks labouring over their bubbling pots and spitting roasts.

  “Good morning to you, sirs,” he addressed them, in a wheedling voice. “Is Mistress Sprye at work today?”

  “She ain’t been here in over a month,” said one of the cooks. “Mr. Nunn threw her out.”

  Price felt a twinge of guilt: he could guess why. “Where did she go?”

  “To the devil, as should you.”

  Price walked east again towards Fish Street, though he thought it more likely that Sue had gone to her family in Bristol, or as he sincerely hoped, had acquired a new admirer. The tenement building repulsed him more than on the winter day he had left it; the same mob of hideous, malnourished children were playing in the yard, screeching as they kicked about an inflated pig’s bladder. One of them pointed at him and chanted jeeringly, “Scarecrow, scarecrow!”

  He turned into the passageway, and knocked on the door. “Is anyone in?” he called, not very loudly.

  “Who’s there?”

  His heart plummeted. “It’s me, Ned.”

  Sue opened, and gawped at him. She was clad in the gown she had worn on their tour of St. Saviour’s Church, and he could detect the swell of belly at the front of her skirts. She had lost her country complexion, though not the sparkle in her eyes. “Don’t you look a sight, Ned – I’d never have known you in those rags, with that ugly fringe of beard on your chin.”

  “It’s my disguise. It’s dangerous for me to be here, Sue – Parliament’s spies will be searching for me.”

  She shut the door, and touched her stomach. “Still, it’s high time you were back.” Before he could stop her, she embraced him, knocking off his hat.

  “Easy there!” He dumped his basket on the floor, and took a seat on the bed. Dismal beyond belief, he thought, surveying the stained walls and ceiling, the cracked horn pane window, and her laundry hung on a line of rope. “How’ve you been, Sue?”

  “Mr. Nunn wouldn’t keep me because of the morning sickness,” she said, sitting down heavily next to Price. “He paid me a week’s wages, and said he was sorry.”

  “Sorry?” echoed Price. “The heartless wretch.”

  “Where’ve you been, Ned? In Oxford?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “Did your Mr. Beaumont tell how he met me at the Saracen’s Head?” Price nodded. “At first I didn’t believe it could be him – he’s as black as one of them heathen mariners that live by the docks. And the way he spoke wasn’t as I’d expected from the son of a lord. He was kind to me, though: he gave me money and advised me to get better lodgings.”

  Beaumont had not mentioned this to him, Price noted. “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “To save the money for our wedding, of course. And after Mr. Nunn dismissed me, I was afraid to move in case you wouldn’t be able find me. I hate it here, Ned,” she confessed, her brave front crumbling. “And I’m sick of those noisy brats. They did for the simpleton boy – he jumped in the river when they were chasing him and drowned, God rest his soul.” She reached for Price’s hand. “Thank heaven you’ve come for me, or I might follow his example.”

  “The fact is, I shouldn’t have come at all,” Price said, in a sombre tone, sliding his hand from hers to pull off his coat. “Lord Digby would fly into a rage if he knew.”

  “Who’s Lord Digby?”

  “His Majesty’s Secretary of State. Mr. Beaumont and I are his agents.”

  “Ooh Ned, you have risen in the world!”

  Price ripped apart the coat lining and extracted forty pounds in coin, piling it into her lap. “This is for you and the child, Sue. You’ll have more when I can send it from Oxford. But as I said, I daren’t stay with you here.”

  Nervousness crept into Sue’s eyes. “A couple of men were in the taproom just over two weeks after I met Mr. Beaumont: a Mr. Veech and a Mr. Draycott. Mr. Veech said they were friends of yours, and that you’d gone to Oxford on work for him. He asked if you’d ever talked to me of Mr. Beaumont.”

  “What did you say?” he demanded, gripping her arm.

  “That you hadn’t. Then he said he had a hundred pounds for you, and you should call on him to get it. Who are they, Ned?”

  “No friends of mine.” Price shivered and released his grip. “Veech is a spy for Parliament, and Draycott answers to him. That’s why I mustn’t enter the City again.”

  “You won’t have to. We’ll go to Oxford together and be married there. We can set ourselves up nicely before the child is born.”

  Price had prepared his speech. “Sue, what was between us was an error for which I accept entire responsibility. But the truth is that I can’t marry you.”

  Her expression hardened. “Have you another wife?”

  For a moment, Price considered lying. “No.”

  “Then you owe it to me to abide by your promise.”

  “Even the King can’t abide by his promises these days! We’re a country at war, and I’m in the thick of it.”

  “You were in the thick of it when you courted me.”

  “Not as I am now. You deserve a life happier and more secure than you’d have with me – you and the child.”

  “It’s our child, Ned.”

  “With your fine qualities, you’ll have a string of suitors vying for you,” Price breezed on. “You need a man with a decent trade, not that of a spy, which is what I am. We’re not so different from thieves, us spies,” he added, borrowing Beaumont’s words.

  “You are a thief – you stole my virtue.”

  “And I can’t wrong you more than I already have. I’m thinking of your welfare. You may not understand that today, but you’ll be grateful to me in time.”

  “Grateful?” she repeated, after a deafening pause. “To be used for your pleasure and tossed aside?”

  “Now that’s unfair. I could have written to you, to say goodbye. I risked my life to tell you to your face, and help you out with money.” She glared at him and next at the coins, then brushed them from her lap as though they were soiling her. “Oh Sue,” he admonished; some had rolled under the bed. He knelt to hunt for them but was loath to fumble in the litter of mouse droppings, and the accumulated dust and grime. “Have you got a broom?” he asked, straightening up.

  “No, I’ve something else for you.” A wave of tepid fluid stung him in the eyes. Sue was brandishing an empty chamber pot. As he blinked and spluttered, she threw aside the pot, seized a pewter candlestick and crashed it into the bridge of his nose. Blood gushed instantly from his nostrils and he howled in pain.

  “Will you stop,” he yelled, as she raised the candlestick for a second blow.

  “If it wouldn’t kill me I’d tear your child from my womb,” she shouted. “A pox on you, you low deceiving rascal. Get out.”

  Staggering to his feet, Price snatched his coat and hat and basket of wares, and rushed to the door. He whipped it open, but not fast enough: the candlestick struck him squarely between the shoulder blades. He moaned and raced out across the yard clutching his free hand over his nose. The children doubled up with laughter and chorused, “Scarecrow, scarecrow!”

  At the corner of Fish and Thames Streets, he stumbled over to a water trough, nudged away the horse that was drinking from it, and plunged his head in, gasping as he surfaced, having to breathe through his mouth. Gingerly he fingered the damage: his nose was broken. When the ripples in the barrel subsided and he saw his reflection in the water, he started to weep. “Stupid, goddamned fool that I am, no better than a dog returning to its vomit,” he blubbered, picking up his basket, and traipsed towards the Strand. He would lurk there until dusk, when the patrols thinned, and he could approach the Hallam residence.
/>   VII.

  “Why should Sir Montague Hallam wish you to sup with him, Giles?” inquired Judith, as she sponged a stain from his Sunday doublet. “I thought your business was finished more than a month ago when he signed the contract with Parliament.”

  “He has some other legal issue to discuss,” replied Draycott, hating the falsehood. He had torn up Sir Montague’s note, an apology for the delayed invitation: Lady Isabella had been called to a sick friend, and was only recently back in London.

  “Is this connected with your duties for Mr. St. John?”

  “I’ll find out when I see him, Judith.”

  “I wonder sometimes about those duties, you are so reticent about them.”

  “I am reticent on St. John’s order,” said Draycott; thank God that, as yet, he had never had to speak to her again of Veech.

  “It seems to me he pays you a great deal for very little work.”

  “Should I complain?”

  “Not when we’re still paying off bills,” she said ruefully, setting aside the sponge.

  “There may be more work ahead that will keep me busy of an evening. With the extra money, you could hire a lady companion to sit up with you, as the children’s nurse goes early to bed.”

  “Why would I sit up, Giles, unless I worried that you might not come home?”

  “No need, then.”

  He dressed, combed his hair, and sprinkled a few drops of rosewater onto the palms of his hands to dab on his freshly shaven jaw. How appalled she would be if she knew what Veech had ordered him to do; and did the righteous Mr. St. John know?

  Draycott tried to kiss her at the door, but she averted her face. “I’ll prepare the spare chamber for you – you may be late.”

  “I can snuggle into our bed.”

  “Please, Giles, I’ve slept so badly ever since Geoffrey died. I had intended to beg of you …”

  “What, my dear? Tell me – whatever can I do for you,” he said, taking her in his arms.

  “Do not … come to me at night.”