Bold and Blooded

by Andrew Wareham

  An hour saw Jacob at the castle, politely asking the bored sentry on the gates where he could discover his brother, Lieutenant Slater.

  “Are you his brother, sir?”

  “I am Jacob Slater of Collyweston.”

  “Just wait a little while, sir.”

  The sentry called to Corporal Meadows, on guard but stretched out half-asleep in the gatehouse, explained who was at the gate.

  “I’ll take ‘im across meself. Got a nag, as ‘e?”

  The sentry saw the saddle horse and assumed it to be Jacob’s.

  “Yes, Corp.”

  “Right. We’ll put ‘im up in the stables lines.”

  Squire’s horse was given over to Micah’s new stable lad.

  “Staying the while, is ‘e, sir?”

  “Overnight at least, perhaps for good.”

  “I’ll see to ‘im, sir. Good looking nag. Bit long in the tooth, ain’t ‘e?”

  “I don’t know his rightful age, but he has been about some few years. Jemmy, by name.”

  Squire had used his horse’s name frequently, caring more for the animal than the villagers.

  There was a score of other riding horses in the stables and Jemmy became just one more of them.

  It was two hours before dinner and most of the officers were out of the camp at the weekend. Micah was called out of the Mess where he was quietly talking with Captain Holdby, saw his brother and took him across to his room, his dress not being acceptable in the company of other officers.

  “What has happened, Brother Jacob? Our mother?”

  “No, she is well, though I trust she can keep her mouth closed! There is a disaster, Micah, and I do not know if we are to be saved.”

  Micah listened and shook his head. He was unsure if anything could be done.

  “Thou sayest that the word is that Squire and his bully, Ralston, set out to the castle here, perhaps to talk over training with the Major? He is no longer competent… I must confer with Captain Holdby. Stay here. Rootes! A drink for my brother.”

  Captain Holdby listened and shook his head in dismay.

  “I shall do my possible, Red Man, but it will not be simple… Best that we say they came here, saw Major Figgis and he refused them. He put them up overnight and sent them off first thing to, where is best?”

  “Grantham, perhaps? Can’t be east – no reason to go there. If he went west, he would stay at his own house because it’s on the way to Leicester or Nottingham even. North to Newark, perhaps, to speak to Colonel Knighton himself?”

  “To join the Collyweston people to the Regiment! Good idea, Red Man. That’s just what he did. He set off and Ralston with him on a borrowed horse – we have several unaccounted for as yet. Tonight - we shall say he did not stay here at all but decided to put in an hour or two on the Great North Road, to reach Newark tomorrow rather than the day after. Then he simply disappeared. None of our knowing. Highwaymen, perhaps. There are still many deserters roaming the countryside and making their way back south from the war with the Scots. He fell foul of them and the bodies will be in a ditch somewhere – miles from here.”

  It was a good enough story, provided no mouths opened in the village. Travelling was still not entirely safe and men had disappeared on the roads. A prosperous-seeming older man with a single companion and night coming on – it was not impossible. There was no easy way of telling what might have happened and the three locations were each in a different county – Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, each with its own authorities and no habit of working with each other. There might well be no investigation at all, for lack of any agreement on who should undertake it - and pay its costs.

  Micah returned to his rooms and drilled his brother in the story and in exactly what he must say.

  “What are we to do with the horse and cart, Brother Micah?”

  “Send it back to Squire’s house, laden with the arms and armour. Bring the men of the village down here on Sunday next, all of them. Nineteen, is it not, who are under arms? I shall speak to Captain Holdby and we shall arrange for them to be armed from the weaponry taken from the malignants in Stamford. It will be as well that all of thee should be armed like our soldiers – there is no place for foot to carry pistols as their only weapon. Go back to the village tonight. Speak to Pastor Doddington and instruct him that he must bring the men down to the castle; he may cancel the second service on the Sabbath. There is more important work to be done. Speak to all of the villagers, ensure that they shall keep their mouths closed. Every man and boy in the village will hang if Squire’s body is found in the village. Have ye eaten yet today?”

  Jacob had not. He listened amazed as Micah gave instructions to Rootes to go to the mess kitchens and put together a plateful and bring it back to the quarters.

  “Yes, sir. Two plates, sir? For you as well as your brother?”

  “Please, Rootes.”

  Rootes left and Jacob asked the obvious question.

  “Be that one thine own manservant, Micah?”

  “He is, Jacob. As an officer in command of a company, I must have a servant so that I do not waste my time on looking after my uniforms and cooking my meals.”

  “Thou has risen far in the world, my brother.”

  “So too hast thou, Jacob. The owner of quarries is no unimportant man. None other in Collyweston can claim so many men working for him.”

  Micah set Jacob on the road home and went to find Captain Holdby.

  “We have pikes and flintlock muskets enough to equip the men of the Collyweston Trained Band, sir. And powder. We have taken a sufficiency of armour as well. To bring twenty men to the ranks when war comes will be well worthwhile.”

  Captain Holdby was unsure that they would come – they had quarries to work, slates to trim and families to keep.

  “The older boys can cut stone and the elderly men can trim their product. They will not turn out as much, but they will earn just sufficient to feed themselves, or so I would hope. The womenfolk can turn their hands to labour as well. Mostly, the girls stay at home as modest maidens should, but they can shoulder a pick or work a trimming hammer if needs must. It is not as we might want, but hard times are coming to us all and we must do as we must.”

  The agent and a groom from Tixover Hall came riding into the barracks next day.

  “The villagers say that Squire came to you yesterday, Captain.”

  “He did, sir, a man with him. He wished to speak to the Major – you may do so if you wish. The old gentleman is no longer wholly capable of his duties, sir, and is quite unable to perform them after he has taken his afternoon refreshments.”

  “You are saying he is incapable, Captain?”

  “I perform the great bulk of the work that is done, sir. Your Squire wanted to send his villagers down to the castle to train, and to fire off more powder. I would not accept the expense. I must have orders before I can undertake so costly a weekly exercise. Colonel Knighton is proprietor of the Regiment and he is to be found at Newark for the nonce. Your Squire rode off with the intention of travelling there. He should reach Newark today, can transact his business tomorrow and should be back before the end of the week, Thursday probably.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  The pair rode off to give the news to the Squire’s wife, concerned because her husband had not returned home.

  “No more enquiries there before Saturday, Red Man, and nothing to be done before Monday. They are Northamptonshire folk and should speak to the Sheriff’s man in Kettering, and he will inform his master in Northampton town itself, which is in the far south of the county. Wednesday at least before they do anything. Then, it will be to ask questions here and beg the people in Lincoln to act – that will take till the following Monday. After that, they must ask of the authorities in Nottingham if they can make enquiries in Newark. It will take two weeks, at least, even to establish that Squire is missing. A month from now and he will be dead in their minds, and lost somewhere on the road north.
Has he a son, do you know?”

  Micah knew nothing of the family – they had never impinged upon him in the village.

  “Pastor Doddington might know, Captain. We must ask him on Sunday.”

  There were three sons of the Tixovers, they discovered. One, the eldest, a man of thirty or so, was at home and managing the lands as an heir should, readying himself to come into his inheritance. The second was a soldier and was overseas plying his trade; he had not been home in five years. The youngest, Mr Charles, had taken to the law and was to be found learning his skills in chambers in London. Pastor Doddington said there were daughters as well, two of them married into families in the county and the third and fourth still at home.

  “The eldest, Mr Richard Tixover, came to the village yesterday to ask if we had heard more of his father. He spoke only to me, Captain Holdby. He said that it was very strange but that his father was often a man of impulse rather than great thought. He does not doubt that he will come home today or tomorrow.”

  “Is Mr Richard a man of any great resolve, do you believe, Pastor?”

  “No, Captain. He lacks ability, in my opinion. He is not a man to overcome opposition. I believe him to be even less clever than his father. He will not know what to do. Added to that, sir, he will find himself, as in effect, the head of the family, in enjoyment of its income in his father’s absence. I do not know what the law might say, but he will be acting as Squire. I suspect he may like that, sir.”

  “What do you know of the youngest son, the lawyer?”

  Pastor Doddington knew nothing of the young man – he had never, to his memory, spoken to him and knew none of his acquaintances. There was no reason why they should ever have met.

  “A London lawyer might be a worry to us… While he stays in London, he will do us no harm.”

  Mr Charles Tixover received a letter to say that his father had disappeared, possibly on the road north and that the family was without its head as a result. Worried for the future of his allowance, he took leave of absence for a month and made his way home. He appeared at the castle in Stamford the day after he returned. Captain Holdby was not available when he came to the gate, being in the town conferring with the Mayor on further moves to make the people safe from the malignants of the area. Micah received the lawyer in his own small office.

  “How can I help you, Mr Tixover?”

  “You are aware of my father’s disappearance, Lieutenant Slater?”

  “Yes, I am, sir. My brother, Jacob Slater, who owns quarries in Collyweston told me that he had never returned after his sudden ride north to Newark.”

  “It seems a strange thing for him to have done, Lieutenant.”

  “Most foolish, I would say, sir. He took the idea in his head that his section of the Trained Band should come to Stamford weekly to learn their drill together with the soldiers here and wished everything to be achieved of the instant, or so it seems. He discovered that he must speak to Colonel Knighton and nothing would do for him but that he should set out immediately, late in the afternoon.”

  “And was that so foolish an action, sir? Can a man not travel the roads of this Kingdom when he will?”

  Micah shrugged and shook his head.

  “I was part of the army that was sent north from here to join the King’s men in the fight against the Scots. For every ten who marched north, no more than four arrived at York and even fewer went further. Of the rest? Some few fell ill, no doubt, but the bulk ran and tried to make their way south again, penniless and without food. It is said that many still infest the countryside, sir.”

  The lawyer was horrified. No word of the desertions had reached London. It was known that the King’s army had fallen back before the invading Scots, mainly, it was believed, to prevent bloodshed, His Majesty not having wished to kill his own subjects in bloody battle.

  “You are to say that the King’s men fell into disarray, sir? That they have become no more than brigands?”

  “They have not changed their nature, sir. The Trained Bands from outside of London were made up from goal deliveries; from naturals who were a charge on their parishes; from runaway schoolboys and apprentices; from a very few of willing volunteers. The volunteers mostly did not desert and the naturals did not know how to, sir.”

  “What of the great mass of loyal men, Lieutenant Slater?”

  “The King has alienated their affections, sir. They will not follow him, except they are forced or somehow persuaded to love him again. Is it not the case in London that the mass of the people are no longer his friends? It is hereabouts.”

  “Foolish noise, no more, Lieutenant. The mob shouts and the apprentices riot, but they are not truly determined in their disloyalty, sir. When the time comes that action must be taken against the few troublemakers in Parliament, you will see that they have no true support, sir. It will be the same here, I cannot doubt.”

  “I much fear you are mistaken, sir. The feeling here is for war. Sober-sided, serious men and street vagabonds alike are determined to protect their religion and their rights as freeborn Englishmen. They see the King as an enemy, many of them. A few, I fear, see the chance for self-aggrandisement. I much suspect there will be war, sir. I fear for the country, sir.”

  Micah listened to his own words, aware that his reading over the weeks in comparative idleness in the barracks had given him the semblance of the speech of an educated man. He was not displeased – he would not be a soldier all of his days and would never go back to being a stone-cutter in a quarry. He must be able to mix with men of birth and ordinary learning at least.

  He waited for a response from the young gentleman sat opposite him, assessing him, trying to decide what he was and what he might do. He was little more than a youth, he thought, then suspected the sheltered law student might be five years his senior.

  ‘Still a boy, for being a son of privilege, for finding no need to reach man’s estate. He is no more fit than Ned was to be on his own.’

  “You are to say that you suspect my father is dead, sir, cut down on the highway by robbers who sought the few coins in his purse?”

  “It is likely, I fear, sir. Even ten shillings would be worth taking to men who have not as many pence. The deserters will be living hand-to-mouth, Mr Tixover, waking up, if they are lucky, in the shelter of a barn or sheepfold, hungry and with no money. Some will have slept in a ditch and drunk its water as their sole sustenance for the day. They will be desperate men who will steal anything from anybody. They may have their matchlocks still. If not, clubs and knives will serve their need.”

  The young lawyer could not comprehend such barbarity. His training was in the remote safety of the courts of law where he learned to argue contract and tort, far distance from the realities of desperate men in an unwelcoming countryside.

  “What is to be done, Lieutenant?”

  “Nothing, Mr Tixover. The Sheriff’s men may pass the word that Squire Tixover is missing, but they cannot go out in search for him – there are too few of them and they have no funds for such an endeavour. Add to that, three different counties are involved, each expecting another to spend their money on the business. We must hope, sir, that the King shall one day turn his mind to the needs of his people, that he shall restore good government to us. Until that day comes, we are bereft of any help and must rely on our own strong arms for our well-being.”

  “You do not sound like a loyal man, Lieutenant Slater! Your King needs your support not your criticism!”

  “My King must earn my support, sir. When the day comes that he shows worthy of the rule of England, then be sure that I shall march behind him. The King has a duty to his people, sir. Good Queen Bess knew herself to be an Englishwoman first and foremost and earned the love of her people. King James, we are told, knew that he must lead England and Scotland, and did so as well as he knew how. King Charles tells us he is the anointed of God and that he has no duty to us. I fear that the people will not stand for that, sir. As well, sir, there is the matter of rel
igion – is the King a good Protestant? Will he stand for us against the wickedness of the Great Whore of Rome? There are many who doubt that he will. If it takes war to finally drive the old religion out of this country, then so be it. If that be construed as disloyalty, then I regret the fact but must still hold to the right. What of you, sir? Are you loyal to England?”

  It was a question impossible of an answer. Mr Charles Tixover made his farewells and rode back to the family house, big but not quite a mansion, to inform his worrying mother that she must wear her blacks, that his father was certainly dead. He spoke then to his brother, explaining that the law must demand the lapse of seven years before a missing man could be declared dead but that a declaration of presumption of death could be made immediately. The effect would be that the family lands could not be sold but that the heir could access their entire income.

  Mr Charles remained long enough to be assured that his one hundred pounds a year was still to be paid out and then took horse for London, debating his best course and finding that he must stand every morning at six o’clock with his local Trained Band to gain a knowledge of arms. Whatever came to pass, he would need to fight in the next few years. He wondered, for the first time, on whose side he would range himself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Years of Blood Series

  Bold and Blooded

  Captain Holdby called Micah to his office, sat him down and shut the door.

  “The Mayor and Corporation have decided that there shall be a trial before the whole Bench assembled of the malignants placed under arrest last week, Red Man!”