Cromwell’s Blessing

Cromwell’s Blessing Peter Ransley The price for a country. The price for a King. The price for a marriage. The dramatic story of Tom Neave continues…The second book in the Tom Neave Trilogy, ‘Cromwell’s Blessing’ sees Tom still determined to fight for his principles – democracy, freedom and honour – despite the growing threat to his young family, as England finds itself in the throes of bloody civil war.The year is now 1647. The King has surrendered to Parliament. Lord Stonehouse, to show his loyalty to Parliament, has named grandson Tom as his successor. But Lord Stonehouse’s son, Richard, is also Tom’s estranged father and a fervent Royalist. If the King reaches a settlement with Parliament Richard will inherit…Parliament itself is deeply divided with those demanding a strict Puritan regime pitted against more liberal Independents like Cromwell. King Charles, under house arrest, tries to exploit the divisions between them. When Richard arrives from France with a commission from the Queen to snatch the King from Parliamentary hands, he and Tom are set on a collision course. Caught between his love for his wife Anne and their young son, and his loyalty to the new regime, Tom must struggle to save both his family and the estate. Copyright (#ulink_53e90a7c-5995-58d9-b830-10424725218e) HarperPress An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperPress in 2012 Copyright © Peter Ransley 2012 Peter Ransley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. 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Source ISBN: 9780007312405 Ebook Edition © September 2014 ISBN: 9780007463596 Version: 2014-10-10 Dedication (#ulink_8b380c3a-8d5b-50ee-8f90-208ca40cfc55) For Finlay Contents Cover (#u0075ddc9-7e14-5188-8f56-d3e95b792a45) Title Page (#uc370eb48-7089-5aa0-b136-b29effe26a40) Copyright (#ue080a878-76af-5f3e-93d5-605e91673658) Dedication (#u74a1b37f-65cf-508e-9412-706f20ad68ce) Map (#u4a9609c4-9566-5791-a0e7-a8c48b7678aa) Part One: A Silver Spoon (#u45c82fc8-87c2-5892-b548-64c1648a14cd) Chapter 1 (#uf7405d1f-5335-59b4-a465-06b8a4519700) Chapter 2 (#ucb6674a8-db5d-5ff8-9d49-ad08bfa392cc) Chapter 3 (#u47bf174c-5690-52e3-b7b7-e8e839322fc7) Chapter 4 (#ua38b01ff-99fe-5c07-8613-5c452ec83137) Chapter 5 (#u07679227-4bb9-5f0c-9a35-61bb698d5e52) Chapter 6 (#uabda263f-491b-51f2-b3b1-d238d2bc984c) Chapter 7 (#u426986a3-825a-5ead-a53b-daad94bc247b) Chapter 8 (#u7db258ec-64a1-574c-bfc1-e036370ae372) Chapter 9 (#uc16e8bd0-99b4-5516-816b-281a3ba701a5) Chapter 10 (#u0bcffbdb-99ae-592b-9d0e-081142bef498) Part Two: Cromwell’s Blessing (#u148a4c84-cdbf-5299-83b1-bf04c64e0648) Chapter 11 (#u30b257f5-df41-5412-9d1d-4139174a8af8) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo) Part Three: Without (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo) Part Four: The Signature (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo) Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo) Read an extract from THE KING’S LIST (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by Peter Ransley (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PART ONE (#ulink_28586cf0-f6b4-563e-a08e-891fa75ed796) 1 (#ulink_e8dd1017-f89c-56d7-8819-77adda638389) I could not stop shivering. That February morning in 1647 was the coldest, bleakest morning of the whole winter, but it was going to be far colder, far bleaker for Trooper Scogman when I told him he was going to be hanged. Most mornings I woke up and knew exactly who I was: Major Thomas Stonehouse, heir to the great estate of Highpoint near Oxford, if my grandfather, Lord Stonehouse, was to be believed. Now the Civil War was over, sometimes, in that first moment of waking, I woke up as Tom Neave, one-time bastard, usurper and scurrilous pamphleteer. That morning was one of them. I should have left it up to Sergeant Potter to tell Scogman, but he would have relished it: taunted Scogman, left him in suspense. At least I would tell him straight out. My regiment was billeted at a farm near Dutton’s End, Essex, part of an estate seized by Parliament from a Royalist who had fled the country. The pail outside was solid ice. The dog opened one eye before curling back into a tight ball. Straw, frosted over in the yard, snapped under my boots like icicles. A crow seemed scarcely able to lift its wings as it drifted over the soldiers’ tents. More soldiers in their red uniforms were snoring in the barns, where horses were also stabled. We were a cavalry unit, the justification for calling Cromwell’s New Model Army both new and a model for the future. Whereas the foot soldiers were pressed men, who would desert as soon as you turned your back, the cavalry were volunteers. They were the sons of yeomen or tradesmen, who brought to war the discipline of their Guilds. They joined not just for the better pay – and the horse which would carry their packs – but because they were God-fearing and believed in Parliament. Except for Scogman. I approached the wooden shed which was the camp’s makeshift prison. I half-hoped Scogman had escaped, but I could see the padlock, still intact, and the guard asleep, huddled in blankets. Scogman on the loose would have been worse. The countryside would have been up in arms. Villagers resented us enough when we were fighting the war. Now it was over, and we were still here, they hated us. Six months had passed since the Royalist defeat at the battle of Naseby. Yet the King was in the hands of the Scots. We were supposed to be on the same side – but the Scots would not leave England until they were paid and there were rumours they were doing a secret deal with the King. In spite of the stone in his bladder, his piles and his liver, Lord Stonehouse was in Newcastle, negotiating for the release of the King. ‘We could not govern with him,’ he wrote tersely to me. ‘But we cannot govern without him.’ The guard, Kenwick, was a stationer’s son from Holborn – I knew them all by their trades. I prodded him gently with my boot. ‘Still there, is he?’ Kenwick shot up, turning with a look of terror towards the shed, as if expecting to see the padlock broken, the door yawning open. He saluted, found the key and made up for being asleep on duty by bringing the butt of his musket down on a bundle of straw rising and falling in the corner. The bundle groaned but scarcely moved. Kenwick brought the butt down more viciously. The bundle swore at him and began to part. Somehow, I thought resentfully, even in these unpromising conditions, Scogman managed to build up a fug of heat not found anywhere else on camp. I waved Kenwick away as, with a rattle of chains, Scogman stumbled to his feet. His hair was the colour of the dirty straw he emerged from, the broken nose on his cherub-like face giving him a look of injured innocence. Trade: farrier, although sometimes I thought all he knew about horses was how to steal them. ‘At ease, Scogman.’ He shuffled his leg irons. ‘If you remove these, sir, I will be able to obey your order. Major Stonehouse. Sir.’ He brought up his cuffed hands in a clumsy salute. Kenwick bit back a smile. I stared at Scogman coldly. He was about my age, twenty-two, but looked younger, thin as a rake, although he ate with a voracious appetite. Scoggy was the regiment’s scrounger. He stole for the hell of it, for the challenge. In normal life he would have been hanged long ago. But when a regiment lived off the land he became an asset. It only took one person to point out a plump hen, and not only would chicken be on the menu that night, but a pot in which to cook it would mysteriously appear. There were many who looked the other way in the regiment, except for strict Presbyterians like Sergeant Potter and Colonel Greaves, but in war the odds had been on Scoggy’s side. In this uneasy peace his luck had run out. Scoggy had been caught stealing not just cheese, but a silver spoon. Not only that. He had stolen it from Sir Lewis Challoner, the local magistrate. I chewed on an empty pipe, knocked it against my boot and cleared my throat. Scogman could read my reluctance and in his eyes was a look of hope. I cursed myself for coming. I should have sent Sergeant Potter. Scoggy would have known, however Potter taunted him, there was no hope. I struggled to find the words. In my mouth was the taste of the roast suckling pig Scoggy had somehow conjured up after Naseby. Even Cromwell had eaten it, praising the Lord for providing such fare to match a great victory. Cromwell believed in the virtue of his cavalry to the point of naivety, but when they sinned, he was merciless. I must follow my mentor’s lead. ‘You know the penalty for stealing silver, Scogman?’ ‘Yes, sir. Permission to speak, sir.’ ‘Go on,’ I said wearily. ‘Wife and children in London, sir. Starving.’ He knew I had a son. We had talked over many a camp fire about children we had never or rarely seen. ‘You should have waited for your wages like everyone else.’ ‘We’re three months behind, sir. There’s talk we’re never going to be paid what we’re owed.’ It was true Parliament was dragging its feet over the money the troops were owed, and a host of other problems, like indemnity and injury benefits. Meanwhile soldiers scraped by on meagre savings, borrowed or stole. ‘That’s nonsense. Of course you’ll be paid. Eventually. You should tighten your belt like everyone else.’ Scogman glanced down at his belt, taut over the narrow waist of his red uniform. Again Kenwick repressed a smile. I took the spoon from my pocket. My breath fogged it over. It looked a miserable object to be hanged for. ‘Why the hell did you steal a silver spoon?’ He couldn’t resist it. ‘Because I never had one in my mouth, sir.’ Kenwick showed no sign of laughing, after looking at my expression. ‘You will go before the magistrate.’ Even then he didn’t believe me. ‘I’d rather be tried by you, sir.’ ‘I’ll bet you would. Sir Lewis may be lenient. Lock him up, Kenwick.’ I turned away, but not before I caught Scogman’s cockiness, his bravado, shrivel like a pricked bladder. Outside, while the crows flapped lazily away, I tried to do what Cromwell did when he ordered a man’s death. He prayed for his soul; it was not his order, he told himself, but God’s will. Then he would unclasp his hands and go on to his next business. Rising over the thud of the door and the rattle of the padlock came Scogman’s voice. ‘Lenient? Sir Lewis Challoner, sir? He’s a hanging magistrate! Major Stonehouse!’ I put my hands together but could not find the words to form a prayer. 2 (#ulink_5a5d9b90-3973-5ad5-9318-3f627f0f5287) Sir Lewis was also the local MP. He was, Lord Stonehouse had warned me, one of the more amenable Presbyterian MPs and a man I must be careful to cultivate. There were now two parties. The Presbyterians were conservative, strict in religion, and softer in the line they pursued with the King. The Independents, led by Cromwell, were tolerant to the various religious sects that had sprung up during the war, such as Baptists and Quakers. They wanted to make sure the absolute power of the King, who had plunged the country into five years of devastating war, was removed. That, at least, was how I saw it. My burning ambition was to be one of the Independent MPs who reached that settlement. I was Cromwell’s adjutant when Lord Stonehouse suggested I was sent here to quell the unrest. He did not say so, but I was sure it was a test – handle the delicate relationship between soldiers and villagers and I would be on my way to Parliament. It was all the more important because the New Model Army was Cromwell’s power base. Discredit the army, and you discredited him. Word about Scogman got round quickly. Troopers saluted me, but averted their eyes and muttered in corners. I retired to the farm kitchen where Daisy, the kitchen maid, brought me bread and cheese and small beer. Her eyes were red. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the corner of her apron. Scogman not only stole chickens, pigs and silver spoons; he stole hearts. She kept poking the fire, scrubbing an already scrubbed pot and sniffing, until she turned to me, blurting out the words. ‘It’s my fault, sir.’ ‘Your fault, Daisy?’ ‘He stole the silver spoon for me, sir.’ ‘Why on earth would he do that?’ ‘It’s, it’s … a sign of love, sir.’ She scrubbed the scrubbed pot and went as red as the fire. ‘Is it true, sir … you’re going to hang Scoggy?’ ‘No, Daisy.’ Her eyes brightened. I gulped down the remaining beer. ‘He’s going before the magistrate.’ She burst into tears and fled. Worst of all was Sergeant Potter who congratulated me for getting rid of that evil, thieving bastard. That would send a message to the other God-forsaken backsliders! The regiment was getting out of control and Dutton’s End was up in arms. Had I marked the minister’s sermon, echoing other sermons throughout Essex calling for a petition to Parliament to disband the army, which from being a blessing had become a curse, a leech, sucking the life-blood from village and country? I winced when he said his only regret was that he could not tie the neckweed himself and retreated to the outhouse where I had my office. I wrote the letter to Sir Lewis, handing Scogman over to his jurisdiction and asking him for a leniency I knew he would not grant. I sent for Lieutenant Gage to deliver it. Instead I got Captain Will Ormonde. Of all the delicate situations at Dutton’s End Will was the most sensitive. We had rioted together in the uprising for Parliament, the riots that had driven the King from London. We had fought in the first battles of the war together. When this regiment’s Colonel, Greaves, had fallen ill, Will had expected promotion. Instead, I had been sent to take temporary charge. He was right to think bitterly that it was because of Lord Stonehouse he had been passed over. But it was only partly that. He was too hot-headed and radical. Before I got here, he had made a bad situation worse. Will was in his early twenties but, like all of us, looked older. He wore his hair long to cover an ear mutilated by a sabre slash. ‘You can’t send Scoggy to that bastard, Tom. We’ve all eaten his meat.’ ‘This isn’t meat. It’s a felony.’ ‘He’s denied it.’ ‘Will, he was seen at the robbery! I searched his pack and found the spoon there. I’ve given him warning after warning.’ ‘I know,’ he conceded. ‘But Scoggy.’ That was his best argument. But Scoggy. Scoggy was more than a scrounger. A thief. A womaniser. He was a joke at the end of a day of despair. The man who could always find a beer, whose flint was dry when everyone else’s was wet. Will stared at the letter I had written, sealed and ready for Lieutenant Gage to deliver. ‘Try him here.’ ‘Parliament wants felonies passed to the civil authority.’ ‘Parliament.’ There was disappointment, frustration, impatience in his voice. ‘It’s what we fought for.’ His answer was to pull out a sheet of paper. ‘Have you seen this?’ I knew what it was before he handed it to me. There was a rebellion in Ireland and the army was trying to raise volunteers. The paper contained the names of the men in the regiment. Only a few had ticks by them. They were rootless men like Bennet, a gunsmith, who had developed a taste for war and was the regiment’s crack marksman. The last thing the vast majority wanted was to go to Ireland. They wanted, above everything else, what I wanted – to go home. ‘The men believe they won’t be paid unless they agree to go to Ireland.’ ‘That’s nonsense.’ ‘That’s what Potter’s saying.’ ‘I’ll speak to him.’ I picked up the letter. ‘Tom. If you send that letter to Sir Lewis the soldiers will riot.’ My mouth was suddenly dry. I got up, opened the door and shouted for Lieutenant Gage. I waited until I was sure of controlling my voice. ‘There is to be no riot, Will. You are to keep order.’ His fists were clenched, his face a dull red. I could see Lieutenant Gage approaching. Will brought his hand up in a salute and barked savagely: ‘Very good, sir.’ He almost cannoned into Gage on his way out. I handed Gage the letter and gave him instructions for delivery. It was a few minutes before I could stop shaking. There was a lane with high hedgerows not far from the shed where Scogman was kept. It twisted away from the camp towards Dutton’s End and I hoped that, if the bailiff took Scogman that route, any disturbance could be kept to a minimum. The last thing I expected was for Sir Lewis Challoner to come for his prey himself. He had been a Royalist at the beginning of the war but when he had seen which way the wind was blowing had changed sides, bringing a vital artillery train to Parliament. He rode into the farmyard followed by his bailiff Stalker. He looked as if he had lunched well, spots of grease gleaming on his ample chins as he smiled affably down at me from his horse. ‘Well, well, Major. We are returned to the rule of law, are we?’ ‘We never left it, Sir Lewis,’ I said, returning his smile. There was a cheer from somewhere nearby, and the smile went from Sir Lewis’s face. Soldiers had appeared from the barn and the stables. Daisy was at the kitchen window, dabbing her face with her apron. Bennet, the marksman, was cleaning his musket. The dog that followed him on his poaching expeditions was at his heels. I could smell the wine on Sir Lewis’s breath as I went close to him. ‘Better do this as quietly and quickly as possible.’ He gave me a fat, innocent, smile. ‘You can control your men, can’t you, Major?’ ‘You are provoking them, Sir Lewis,’ I said coldly. ‘I will not have it. If you want him, take him.’ He glared down at me. ‘Very well. The felon, Stalker.’ Stalker did not smile. He was a devout Puritan and gave the soldiers a gloomy but satisfied look, as if the world, which had been upside down, had righted itself again and he was back in control. He nodded to several of them, as if to say – I know you. You stole a ham. And you, you fornicator. She’s with child. Don’t worry. I have you all on my list. Some of the men slipped away under his gaze. Others muttered angrily. Only Bennet returned his gaze with interest, and patted the growling dog gently. I got my horse and led the two of them across the fields. Sir Lewis still seemed eager to pursue an argument. He jerked his thumb back at the soldiers. ‘Some of those fellows, I believe, think the final authority rests not with the King, nor the Commons, but the people.’ I shook my head. ‘They might in a London alehouse. Not here.’ His pale eyes narrowed. ‘Is that so?’ ‘Most are not interested in politics, Sir Lewis. All they want is to be paid what they’re owed, go home to their families, work and no longer be a burden to the countryside.’ ‘They are pagans,’ Stalker said. ‘They declare themselves preachers. Spread false doctrine.’ ‘They only pray here, Mr Stalker, because you will not allow them in your church.’ ‘Because they are rabble, sir.’ ‘They preach because they have no minister available. Is it not better that they try to reach God, than not try at all?’ Sir Lewis pursed his lips. ‘Dangerous, sir, dangerous.’ But he was mollified by the sight of Scogman in chains being bundled into a cart by Sergeant Potter. Stalker rode off towards them, and Sir Lewis thawed even further, to the extent he said he could see why Lord Stonehouse put such an extraordinary amount of trust in so young a man. He gave me a prodigious wink and began to rhapsodise about the beauty of the countryside around us. It was neglected, but the soil was rich and it was well watered. He gave me another wink, a slap on the back and said perhaps we could meet again to talk about country affairs. I was somewhat bemused by this abrupt change of heart, but put it down to the wine at lunch and – perhaps a little – to my diplomacy. ‘My regards to Lord Stonehouse,’ he said, and made as if to leave. I turned away, expecting Sir Lewis and Stalker to ride off immediately, escorting the cart and its prisoner down the lane to avoid the soldiers. But I heard Scogman give a yell of pain. I ran back to see the cart had come to a stop at the beginning of the lane. Scogman was being manhandled from it by Stalker and Sergeant Potter. They were threading a rope through his chains with the intention of tying it to Stalker’s saddle. I hurried back to them. ‘Sir Lewis, for pity’s sake take him in the cart! You will rouse my soldiers!’ He put on a puzzled look, belied by his quivering jowls. ‘The New Model Army? It is a model of discipline, Major, is it not?’ Scogman pulled away, tripping and falling. His britches were torn and his legs bleeding where the chains had cut into them. ‘Release him. Take him in the cart, or you do not take him at all.’ I struggled to keep my voice even. Stalker hesitated. Sir Lewis lifted his head. I could see why they called him a hanging magistrate as he gave me a look of unflinching hostility. But he kept his voice friendly, even jovial, taking out the letter I had sent him. ‘This is your signature, sir? Your seal, is it not? You have released him to me and I will have him as I will. Good day to you, sir. Get on with it, Stalker! What are you waiting for, man?’ Stalker yanked Scogman towards his horse and tied him to his saddle. I stood impotently. What a stupid, naive fool I was to think a man like Challoner would ever be in a mood for compromise. He wanted to drag his prisoner through the town to demonstrate his power. Stones, rotting vegetables and shit would be hurled at him. He would be lucky to enter prison alive. Diplomacy? Far from helping to heal the wounds between town and soldiers, releasing Scogman would inflame them. At least if God had made me eternally hopeful – or hopelessly naive – he had given me the quick wit to get out of the mire I found myself in. Or perhaps, as some had held, ever since I was born, it was the Devil. And mire it was. Crows rose and flapped as soldiers, aroused by Scogman’s screaming, streamed from the farm. Will was keeping them half-heartedly under control, but I saw the barrel of a musket poking through the hedge. Stalker was riding slowly, Scogman stumbling after, almost under the hooves of Challoner’s following horse. As they saw the soldiers, Stalker urged his horse into a trot. Scogman stumbled and fell. He made no sound as he was dragged from the ditch into the lane and back again. Perhaps he would not cry out in front of his fellow soldiers. More likely he was barely conscious. I pushed through the hedge but could not see the musketeer. It must be Bennet. If it was, Sir Lewis was as good as dead. We would no longer just have a problem of unrest but a major crisis that the Presbyterian majority in Parliament would seize on against Cromwell. I heard the click of the dog lock, releasing the musket’s trigger. ‘Wait!’ I shouted to Sir Lewis. ‘You have forgot the evidence!’ I pulled the spoon from my pocket. The ridiculous-looking spoon, slightly bent. A man’s life. Sir Lewis, a stickler for correctness in his court, checked his horse. ‘Get down from your horse unless you want to be shot,’ I said. ‘Go to hell.’ ‘Get down, man, or I cannot guarantee your life!’ He saw the barrel of the musket. He had courage, I’ll grant him that. He tried to ride forward, his horse’s hooves an inch from Scogman’s face, but at that same moment I made a grab for his horse’s reins and Stalker, catching sight of the musket, slid from his saddle. Sir Lewis lurched and fell clumsily to the ground. A cheer rose from the watching soldiers before Will quietened them. I tried to help Sir Lewis up, but he shoved me away, lips, jowls shaking in a face so puce with rage I thought he had had a stroke. I apologised to him and said I thought a mistake had been made. For a moment he could not trust himself to speak. Then his face gradually resumed its normal dull red colour and he found his chilling, courtroom voice. ‘A mistake! Sir, you have made the mistake of your life! I will have you in the same cell as him,’ and he pointed at Scogman, who was coming round, staring up at us in bewilderment. ‘He may not have committed a felony.’ ‘May not …? May not …? He stole silver, sir!’ ‘Blake!’ I shouted across the field. ‘Where is Trooper Blake?’ Blake pushed his way through the soldiers, who had by now spilled into the lane ahead of us. He was an odd man, prematurely bald, slightly hunchbacked, but the soldiers respected him because he could fix almost anything, from a leaking pot to a broken flintlock. ‘Trade?’ I said. ‘Journeyman silversmith, sir,’ Blake said with a salute. ‘City of London, Goldsmiths’ Guild.’ He straightened, losing some of his stoop, and his eyes gleamed with pride, a pride that began to be reflected in many of the sullen, punch-drunk faces around him. These were men who had almost forgotten they had trades, and another life, and were beginning to wonder, in this purgatory of waiting, whether they would ever return to them. They began to grin as I handed the spoon to Blake. ‘What do you think this is, Blake?’ ‘A – it’s a spoon, sir.’ There was a volley of laughter from the men until Sergeant Potter shouted them into some kind of order. ‘No, man! I mean, is it silver?’ Challoner snarled at me for what he called my equivocation but then, in spite of himself, watched as Blake bit the spoon, polished it and bent it. Finally he peered short-sightedly at the leopard’s head on the back of the handle. There was complete silence, except for the rattle of chains as Scogman stumbled to his feet. Blake seemed wholly concerned with making as honest and accurate a judgement as he could, no matter that a man’s life was at stake. ‘Mmm. It’s difficult to say, sir.’ ‘Your opinion, man!’ Blake caught the sharpness of my tone and slowly it dawned on him that I wanted him to perjure his craftsman’s judgement. ‘Well … the leopard’s head mark is very crude … I would say it’s a fake.’ Someone held Scogman up as he almost collapsed. Challoner tried to grab the silver spoon before it disappeared into my pocket again. ‘Give it to me! I’ll have it assayed!’ ‘Lieutenant Gage!’ I shouted. Gage cottoned on much more quickly than Blake. Stepping forward into my makeshift court, he declared himself to be from Gray’s Inn, giving the impression of a lawyer, rather than the clerk he was. Blake valued the spoon at a few pence. Thefts above a shilling were a hanging offence. Whether a soldier might be punished by the army or the civil courts for a lesser offence was a grey area. I told Challoner I would punish Scogman myself. By this time he was almost incoherent with rage. ‘Justice? You call this New Model Justice? I’ll give you justice!’ On one side I had Challoner threatening me. On the other, the grinning soldiers and Will whispering in my ear that I had the judgement of Solomon. I could not stand either of them. I could not stand myself. I had fondly imagined I would bring both sides closer with my diplomacy. Now they were so far apart there would be open warfare between town and soldiers. I was filled with a cold ferocious anger which I could scarcely keep under control. Stalker was helping Challoner back on his horse when I stopped him. ‘Justice? I will show you justice!’ I snatched the whip from Stalker’s saddle and told Sergeant Potter to unchain Scogman. ‘Strip him.’ There was not much to strip. His britches were in shreds from being dragged along the lane and his jerkin came off in two pieces. His fair hair was dark with matted blood and weals stood out on his ankles and wrists. He stumbled groggily as Sergeant Potter spreadeagled him against a fence. Still he grinned at his mates and, when he saw Daisy peering from the edge of the crowd, waggled his sex at her. Cheers rose when she fled into the farmhouse. Challoner watched from his horse, his curled lip indicating he believed this to be as much a masquerade as the spoon. I tossed the whip to Bennet, the man I believed had held the musket, which had disappeared. ‘Twenty lashes.’ In spite of his bravado, Scogman would scarcely have been able to stand without the ropes that tied his hands to the fence. His knees buckled. Blood ran from a fresh head wound and trickled slowly down his back. Ben, the surgeon, took a step towards me, but turned away when he saw my expression. He knew this mood of mine. Bennet smoothed the lash between his fingers. He measured his stance. The crowd fell silent. The whip cracked. Scogman winced and his eyes jerked shut, although the tip of the whip barely touched his flesh. Bennet’s natural love of violence was held in check by the feeling of his watching colleagues. Perhaps, instead, he gained a perverse pleasure from taunting Stalker and Challoner by not drawing blood. The whip cracked harmlessly again, and this time there was no doubt about it, Scogman joined in the masquerade, jerking and writhing theatrically. Challoner turned his horse away in contempt and disgust. I wrenched the whip from Bennet’s hand and lashed out clumsily at Scogman’s back. He gave one startled cry and then fell silent. I wanted him to cry out, to scream, but where he had performed for Bennet, he would not perform for me. After the first line of blood the watching faces disappeared and I saw nothing and heard nothing, until my arm was gripped and Ben pulled me away. I stared at him blankly, then at the whip, then at what I at first took to be a piece of raw meat in front of me. It was all I could do to swallow back the vomit that rose in my throat. I flung the whip back at Challoner. ‘Satisfied?’ 3 (#ulink_a2c1089b-213e-5581-b48c-96884d08d24d) Over the next few days Challoner continued hounding me to hand Scogman over, but I refused. Ben told me he was not expected to live. The least I could do was let him die under Daisy’s care for, while there was a shred of life left in him, Challoner would certainly hang him. Ben wanted to purge me, saying my humours were severely out of balance, but I would have none of it. I had a curt letter from Lord Stonehouse in Newcastle, ordering me to go home. Colonel Greaves had recovered, and was returning to the regiment. I rode alone from Essex to London. The countryside was bare, many fields overgrown with weeds, while all the troop movements had left the roads looking as though a giant plough had been taken to them. In a world upside down, even the seasons had not escaped. Spring was not merely late; it looked as if it would never appear. Most of the trees had been chopped down for firewood, during the Royalist blockade of Newcastle that had stopped coal ships coming to London. All I could see was Scogman’s raw, bleeding back and the sullen resentful faces of my men. No – no longer my men. I had lost them. Lost myself. By the time I arrived in London, those memories had left me in total darkness. My wife Anne knew the mood, the strange blackness that came over me, and saw it in my face when I half-fell from my horse into her arms. Her embrace was more soothing than any physic, blotting out the memory of that bleeding back. For days I slept or wandered in the garden of our house in Drury Lane, where Anne’s green fingers had planted an apple tree. The one in Half Moon Court where we had played as children, then snatched our first kisses, had been chopped down in the last bitter winter of the war. I felt the first, tight swelling of the buds on the young tree, still black, waiting for the warmth of the sun. There would be spring in this little garden; perhaps the tree would bear its first fruit. Cromwell lived in the same lane and I screwed up my courage to go and see him, but was told he was ill, with an abscess in the head which would not clear. The news made me even more disconsolate. ‘You are not yourself, sir,’ said Jane, the housekeeper. I tried to laugh it off. ‘Exactly, Jane! I am not myself. I must find myself! Where am I?’ Was I with the sullen resentful men, or was I, could I ever be, with people like Challoner? ‘Where am I?’ I said to my son Luke, who, when I had arrived, had stared in wonder at this strange man tumbling from a horse into his mother’s arms. ‘Am I under the chair, Luke? No! The table?’ Luke ran to Jane, covering his face in her skirts. ‘Come, sir!’ she laughed. ‘Tom is your father!’ ‘Fath-er?’ It grieved me that I had spent half my life finding out who my father was, and now Luke did not know his. He had dark curls, in which I fancied there was a trace of red, and the Stonehouse nose; what in my plebeian days I called hooked, but Lord Stonehouse called aquiline. Although Luke’s grandfather doted on him, he treated the boy very sternly. Perhaps because of that, Luke often ran to him, as he did to the ostler, Adams, who would level a bitten fingernail at him and order him to keep clear of his horses, or he would not answer for the consequences. Luke would run away yelling, then creep quietly back for another levelled nail before at last Adams would snatch him up screaming and plonk him in the saddle. I felt a stab of petty resentment he would not play these games with me, and went upstairs to the nursery to find my daughter Elizabeth. She was a few months old. Anne had been bitterly disappointed she was not a boy. It was a rare week which did not see at least one child buried in our old church of St Mark’s and Anne wanted as many male heirs as possible to reinforce Lord Stonehouse’s promise I should inherit. Lord Stonehouse’s first son, Richard, had gone over to the Royalists, and when Lord Stonehouse had declared I would inherit I had fondly imagined it was because of my own merit. In part, perhaps it was. But it was also because he had been discovered helping Richard escape to France. Declaring me as his heir not only saved Lord Stonehouse’s skin. It enabled him to back both horses: whoever ruled, it was the estate that mattered, keeping and expanding the magnificent seat at Highpoint and preserving the Stonehouse name at the centre of power. Elizabeth, little Liz, did not look a Stonehouse. In my present, rebellious mood, she was my secret companion. Or was it weapon? ‘Liz Neave,’ I whispered to her, giving her the name I had grown up with when I was a bastard in Poplar, and knew nothing of the Stonehouses. She had scraps of hair, still black, but I fancied I could see a reddish tinge. Her nose was not aquiline, or hooked, but a delicious little snub. Anne called her fractious, but her crying reminded me of my own wildness. When I held out my finger she stopped crying, gripping it with her hand so tightly, I could not stop laughing. Her lips, blowing little bubbles of spit, formed their first laugh. I swept her up, and hugged her and kissed her. Fractious? She was not fractious! I rocked her in my arms until she fell asleep. I went to our old church, St Mark’s, to see the minister, Mr Tooley, about Liz’s baptism. Anne wanted it done in the old way, with water from the font in which she had been baptised, and godparents. Mr Tooley still did it, although the Presbyterians, who were tightening their grip on the Church, frowned on both. The church was empty, apart from an old man in a front pew, his clasped hands trembling in some private grief. The familiar pew drew out of me my first prayer for a long time. I feared Scogman was dead. I prayed for forgiveness for my evil temper. For Scogman’s soul. He was a thief, but he stole for others, as much, if not more than for himself. There was much good in him, he was kind and cheered others – by the time I had finished he was near sainthood and I was the devil incarnate. One thing came to me. I determined to find Scogman’s wife and children and do what I could for them. I swore I would never again let my black temper gain control of me. The man rose at the same time as I did. It was my old master, Mr Black, Anne’s father. I had never before seen tears on his face. He drew his sleeve over his face when he saw me. ‘Tom … my lord …’ I wore a black velvet cloak edged with silver. My short sword had a silver pommel and my favourite plumed hat was set at a rakish angle. ‘No, no, master … not lord yet … and always Tom to thee.’ I embraced him and asked him what was the matter. He told me he might be suspended from the Lord’s Table. ‘Thrown out of the Church? Why?’ He told me the Presbyterians were setting up a council of lay elders. The most virulent of the elders, who morosely policed moral discipline in the parish, was none other than Mr Black’s previous journeyman printer, my old enemy Gloomy George. I could not believe it. We had fought a long, bloody war for freedom and tolerance, and what we had at the end of it was Gloomy George. I began to laugh at the absurdity of it, but stopped when I saw what distress Mr Black was in. The Mr Black I knew would have laughed too, but this one trembled in bewilderment so much that I sat him down. I could see how the church had changed. Mr Tooley had allowed a few images, like a picture of the Trinity, because they comforted older members of the congregation. Now it was stripped so bare and stark even the light seemed afraid to enter. Mr Black said that when Mr Tooley used to preach, stern as he was, you left counting your blessings. Now, with the Presbyterians breathing down his neck, his sermons left you counting your sins. ‘But what sin could he possibly find in you?’ I cried. ‘Nehemiah.’ ‘Your apprentice? He is as devout as you are.’ ‘More so. But he has become a Baptist, and refuses to come here.’ ‘If he refuses you, he has broken his bond. You could dismiss him.’ Mr Black’s watery eyes flashed with some of his old fire. ‘He is a good apprentice. And he is devout. I will not dismiss a man for his beliefs.’ We sat in silence for a while. He stared at the blank wall where the Trinity had been. All his life he had been a staunch member of the congregation and the community. He was as responsible for Nehemiah as a father for his children. But the Presbyterians condemned all sects like Baptists as heresies and unless Mr Black brought Nehemiah back into the fold, he would be refused the sacraments. Friends and business would melt away. Even threatened with hell, he stuck stubbornly to his old beliefs in loyalty and duty. ‘How long has Nehemiah’s indenture to run?’ ‘Nine months.’ I pretended to calculate, then frowned. ‘You are surely mistaken, master. It ends next week.’ I stared at him, keeping my face straight. ‘Once he’s indentured he can leave. Get another job.’ He returned my stare with interest. He needed no abacus or record where figures were concerned. ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting,’ he snapped, ‘but I know when he’s indentured. To the day.’ He picked up his stick and I flinched, an apprentice again, fearing a beating. He limped out of the church and stood among the gravestones as if he was gazing into the pit. ‘The Stationery Office has his full record,’ he said. ‘Records can be lost. Once he has completed his apprenticeship he is not your responsibility. Is he good enough to be indentured?’ ‘Better than most journeymen.’ ‘Well then. When he is indentured I can help him get work elsewhere and you can take on another apprentice.’ ‘It is most irregular,’ he muttered. ‘If everything had been regular, master, we would not have won the war. There were not half enough qualified armourers and blacksmiths to make all the arms we needed.’ He still looked troubled but said: ‘Well, well, if that is the way the world is now … But I would not know what to say to him.’ ‘I will do it. We got on well, and he will listen to me.’ Elated with what I hoped would be a better attempt at diplomacy, I went to see Mr Tooley about Liz’s baptism. He was engaged in a room across the corridor. I waited in a small anteroom. A cupboard, I remembered, contained books I might occupy myself with. It was locked, but I knew where the key was hidden for I used to borrow books to improve my reading. When I opened it, out spilled a number of objects that had once been part of the church. There were old, mouldering copies of the Book of Common Prayer which the Presbyterians had banned, brass candlesticks spotted with green mildew, the picture of the Trinity I had missed in the church, cracked and torn, and a rolled-up linen surplice. Everything that had once brought light and colour into the church had been buried here. An ineffable sense of sadness crept over me as I opened a prayer book and the musty smell brought back to me the light and comfort of the old church. A nearby door opened and a chill ran through me as I heard the unmistakable voice of the man who had beaten me so often as a child – for the good of my soul, as he put it. I put the prayer book down on a chair and went to the door, beginning to open it so they would know I was there. But they were too intent on their argument to see me. George was in the doorway of Mr Tooley’s study, his back to me. He was almost bald, his head gleaming as though polished. ‘You must name Nehemiah a heretic in church on Sunday, Mr Tooley.’ George used to address Mr Tooley with wheedling deference. I was amazed at his hectoring tone. Even more so by Mr Tooley accepting it, although his face was flushed and he struggled to keep his voice even. ‘I will see Mr Black again.’ ‘He is obdurate. Stiffnecked. As the Proverbs have it, Mr Tooley: “Comes want, comes shame from warnings unheeded.”’ The years dropped away. He could have been talking to me when I was an apprentice. My nails bit into my palms and my cheeks were burning. ‘What irks a man more than vinegar on his tooth? A lingering messenger,’ Mr Tooley responded. ‘As the Proverbs have it.’ I gave a silent cheer. As George turned to go, I saw I had left the cupboard door wide open. Mr Tooley’s old surplice lay unrolled on the floor. Hastily, I crammed things back into the cupboard, shut the door and hid the key. During this, George fired his parting shot. It was couched more in sorrow than in anger. ‘The warning is not just for the sheep, Mr Tooley, but for the shepherd.’ ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that!’ Mr Tooley was livid with anger. George, seeing his point had struck home, twisted the knife. ‘Oh, it is not me, a humble sinner, talking. I am but the poor messenger of the council of elders, which by the 1646 ordinance …’ Ordinance! As well as proverbs, George was stuffed with ordinances, which listed the scandalous offences of renouncers of the true Protestant faith. Mr Tooley took a step towards George. His fist was clenched and a pulse in his forehead was beating. George did not move away. He cocked his head with a look of sorrow on his face, almost as if he was inviting a blow. Afraid Mr Tooley would strike him – and afraid, for some reason, that this was exactly what George wanted – I stepped out into the corridor. The effect on the two men could not have been more different. Mr Tooley plainly saw me as he had always seen me. ‘The prodigal son,’ he said, with a wry smile, holding out his hand. George bowed. ‘My lord, congratulations on your good fortune. I beg to hope that your lordship realises that, in a small measure, it is due to me not sparing the rod, however much that grieved me.’ There was more of this, but I took the unction as I used to take the blows. I had promised God I would not lose my temper. There were to be no more Scogmans. Diplomacy, not confrontation. I told them there was now no need to name Nehemiah a heretic in church. ‘He has recanted?’ George said. ‘He will be leaving Mr Black.’ ‘He’s been dismissed?’ I bowed almost as deeply as he did. ‘I believe people should worship according to their conscience, but the law is the law. Nehemiah will be replaced by another apprentice who will attend church in a proper manner.’ I winced as he clasped his hands and lifted his eyes. ‘God be praised! I shrank from putting Mr Black through so much distress, as I did when I applied the rod to you, but it was for the good of both your souls.’ He put out his hand. It felt as cold and slippery as the skin of a toad. I arranged the baptism with Mr Tooley in two weeks’ time. When I left I still had the clammy feeling of George’s grip. Matthew, the cunning man who had brought me up, would say I had been touched. It was a stupid superstition, but all the same I wiped my hand on the grass. My spirits rose again when I rode into Half Moon Court. The apple tree was a sad, withered stump, but from the shop came the familiar thump and sigh of the printing press. Sarah, the servant, came out to greet me. She walked with a limp now, but her banter had not changed since she used to rub pig’s fat into my aching bruises. ‘What has tha’ done to master, Tom?’ ‘Done?’ I cried in alarm. ‘He’s had a face like a wet Monday for weeks. Now he’s skipped off like a two-year-old with mistress to buy her a new hat for the baptism.’ ‘I only talked to him about his problems,’ I said modestly. ‘I wish you could talk to my rheumatism. My knee’s giving me gyp.’ ‘Which knee?’ I said, stretching out my hand. ‘Getaway! I know you. Think you can cure the world one minute, and need curing yourself the next.’ She hugged me just as she did when I was a child, then walked back into the house quite normally, before stopping to stare at me. ‘Why, Tom! Tha’s cured my knee!’ I stared at her, my heart beating faster. Perhaps it was something to do with my prayers that morning. Sarah laughed, then winced at the effort she had made to walk normally. She flexed her knee and rubbed it ruefully, before limping back into the house. ‘Oh, Tom, dear Tom. If tha believes that, tha’ll believe anything.’ Nehemiah was as good as any journeyman, I could see that. He was too absorbed in what had once been my daily task, to see me watching from the door. He was taller than me, and would have been handsome but for spots that erupted round his mouth and neck. It was a hard task for one man to feed the paper in the press and bring down the platen, but he did it with ease. I wondered why he did not put the sheets out to dry, as he should have done. Instead, he interleaved them with more absorbent paper before putting them carefully in an old knapsack. I gave a cry of surprise when I saw it was my old army knapsack. Nehemiah whirled round, dropping a printed sheet, and grabbed hold of me. I thought I was strong and fit but he twisted my arms into a lock and bent me double. His strong smell of sweat and ink was overpowering. I yelled out who I was. Only then did he release me with a confused apology. ‘I – I did not recognise you. I thought you were a spy, sir,’ he muttered. I laughed. The Half Moon printed the most boring of government ordinances. ‘A spy. What has Mr Black got to hide?’ I bent to pick up the sheet he had dropped but he snatched it up and put it in the knapsack. I shrugged. While his master was out he was doing some printing of his own. I thought him none the worse for that. Most apprentices of any enterprise did so. When I was going to be a great poet I had secretly printed my poems to Anne on that very press. I gazed fondly at the battered knapsack, which I thought had been thrown away. ‘You do not want it, sir?’ I shook my head, and he thanked me so profusely for it my heart went out to him, for I remembered when, in my crazy wanderings, it once contained everything I had in the world. ‘How would you like to be a journeyman, Nehemiah?’ ‘Very much, sir. I have dreamed of it long enough.’ ‘Well then, you shall be. In a few days’ time.’ I smiled at his look of astonishment. ‘But my indentures are not over for –’ ‘Nine months.’ ‘And twenty days,’ he said, looking at the base of the press, where for the past year he had carved and crossed through each passing day before his release. I told him he was as skilled as he ever would be and the paperwork was a mere formality. I would arrange it. As a journeyman, his religion would then be a matter for his own conscience. I began to go into practical details, but he interrupted me. He had a stammer, which he had gradually mastered, but it returned now. ‘Has my m-master agreed?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It is …’ His face reddened, intensifying the pale blue of his eyes. ‘D-dishonest.’ I told him the rules were dishonest for apprentices – medieval rules, designed to give Guild Masters free labour for as long as possible. ‘What about George?’ ‘There’ll be no trouble there. I’ve told him you were leaving.’ ‘With-without telling me?’ He began to make me feel uncomfortable, particularly as I thought he was right. I had been high-handed. ‘I’m sorry, but the opportunity arose. And I was worried about Mr Black being thrown out of church.’ ‘That would be a good thing,’ he said fervently. ‘A good thing?’ ‘He could join the Baptists and see Heaven in this life.’ The idea was absurd. But he elaborated on it with a burning intensity until I stopped him. ‘Nehemiah, Mr Black is old and he’s been in St Mark’s all his life. I’m sorry, but you have to leave. Or go to your master’s church.’ ‘Obeying G-George? Like you did?’ He knew the story of how I had struck George and might have killed him if Mr Black had not intervened. Then I had run off. I sighed. Helping him was not as easy as I blithely imagined, particularly when he brought up how I had acted like him – or even more violently – in the past. I walked outside to untether my horse. He followed me, saying he h-hoped he did not sound un-g-grateful – I detected a note of sarcasm in his stammer – but e-even with his journeyman papers he had no position to go to. I mounted my horse. ‘I will take care of that.’ I told him of a printer who, at my recommendation, would pay him twenty-eight pound a year. He gazed up at me, open-mouthed. ‘All f-found?’ There was no sarcasm in his stammer now. Money. Everything came down to money. I was a fool not to mention that at first. ‘All found.’ ‘Twenty-eight pound!’ he muttered to himself. ‘All found!’ He caught the saddle of my horse. ‘He is one of Lord Stonehouse’s printers. I would be beholden to Lord Stonehouse.’ ‘We are all beholden to someone, Nehemiah.’ ‘No!’ he cried, with such violence my horse reared. ‘We are not! We are beholden to ourselves!’ He gave me that look of intensity again, then abruptly bowed his head. ‘I-I am sorry. I know I have been churlish, but I have not slept since this business began. I was a fool to think Mr Black would become a Baptist.’ He gave me a wry wincing grin and I warmed to him, for he brought back to me all the torments I went through at his age. ‘I must consult my brethren. And pray.’ ‘And sleep,’ I smiled, telling him to give his answer to Mr Black in the morning. Who would have thought peace was such hard work? It was easier to face cavalry across open fields than try to bring conflicting minds together. But I felt a surge of optimism as I rode past Smithfield on the route I used to take as a printer’s runner. I may have made a great hash of the Challoner business, but I was learning. Next morning a letter came from Mr Black. Nehemiah had gone. He had scrupulously broken up the last forme, distributed the type and cleaned the press. In the night he had woken Sarah, apologising for taking a piece of bread, which he promised to repay. He put the bread in the old knapsack, with his Bible and a pamphlet whose title she knew, for he had read it to her interminably. It was called England’s Lamentable Slaverie. There was no printer’s mark. It was from a group naming themselves the Levellers. It declared the Commons as the supreme authority over which the King and the Lords had no veto. Also found in Nehemiah’s room was a copy of a petition to Parliament circulating round the army. It asked simply to be paid, to guarantee indemnity for acts committed during the war, and no compulsion to serve in Ireland. Nehemiah went off at first light, breaking his bond as I had done, years before. 4 (#ulink_b000d4ad-ef63-5861-a49d-9886a0afc221) It preyed on my mind. What Nehemiah had done was completely stupid. He could have been a journeyman, earning far more than most people of his age, free to practise his religion – what more did he want? And why did it trouble me so much? ‘I would be beholden to Lord Stonehouse.’ That was the problem, of course. He reminded me I was beholden to Lord Stonehouse. Nehemiah was like a piece of grit in bread that sets off a bad tooth. However much I told myself it was nonsense – he could be a liberated slave and see how far that got him – the ache persisted. Anne knew, as she always did, there was something on my mind, but I refused to talk about it. She would laugh at me, just as she had when I was like Nehemiah. So I whispered it to little Liz and she put everything into proportion. I was beholden to Lord Stonehouse because I was beholden to Liz, to my whole family, to peace. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ I whispered. She gurgled and put out her hand, exploring my face. I laughed with delight, held her up, kissed her and rocked her to sleep. I crept away, stopping with a start when I saw Anne watching me. ‘You never kiss me like that now.’ I bowed. ‘Your doctor has warned me against passion, madam.’ It was true. Liz had been a difficult birth. Anne had lost a lot of blood, and had been bled even more by Dr Latchford, Lord Stonehouse’s doctor. That was one of the things I hated most about being a Stonehouse. I felt like a stallion, not a lover, only allowed to cover the mare in season. ‘Dr Latchford,’ I said, giving her the doctor’s dry, confidential cough, ‘says it is too soon to have another child.’ ‘Dr Latchford, fiddle!’ She picked up the mockery in my manner and drew close to me. ‘You’re back,’ she whispered. Perhaps it was Nehemiah, that ache in the tooth, which made me say ‘Tom Neave’s himself again.’ ‘Oh, Tom Neave! Tom Neave! I hate Tom Neave! He is nasty and uncouth and has big feet.’ I choked with laughter. This was exactly the sort of game we used to play as children after I had arrived without boots and she had mocked my monkey feet. ‘How can it be? Tom Neave or Thomas Stonehouse, my feet are exactly the same size, madam!’ ‘They are not! Look at you!’ In a sense she was right. I was not really conscious of it until that moment, but since seeing Nehemiah I had taken to wearing my old army boots, cracked and swollen at the toes, but much more comfortable than Thomas Stonehouse’s elegant bucket boots. I slopped about in a jerkin with half the buttons missing and affected indifference to changing my linen. I loved her in that kind of mood, half genuine anger, half part of our game, teased her all the more and tried to kiss her. ‘Go away! You stink, sir!’ I pulled her to me and kissed her. She shoved me away. I collided into the crib, almost knocking it over. Now really angry, she went to the door. Contrite, I followed to appease her, but the baby was giving startled, terrified cries and I returned to soothe her. The encounter with Anne roused me. We had not slept together since I returned, but I resolved not to go to her room. Although I mocked Dr Latchford, I could see that, even when she had been out in the garden, her skin did not colour. Her blue eyes had lost some of their sparkle. She loved rushing round with Luke, but she left him more and more with Jane and Adams. I was asleep when she came into my room and climbed into bed beside me. ‘Are you sure?’ I mumbled. ‘Sssshhh!’ ‘Dr Latchford –’ ‘Do you want me? Or do you want Dr Latchford?’ She leaned over me and kissed me on the mouth. There was a violence, a hunger in that kiss that swept away the dry old doctor and all our arguments and fears, swept them away in the wonderful rediscovery of the touching of skin, bringing every feeling crackling back to life until her cheeks coloured and her eyes sparkled. We laughed at the absurdity of our arguments, at the sheer joy of being together. We were side by side. I began to climb on top of her. ‘No!’ ‘No?’ She twisted away and wriggled on top, which seemed unnatural, outlandish to me. I had heard some of the men, in their cups, talking of whores having them like men. I had reproved them, not just for the whores, but saying did they want to wear skirts, like cuckolded husbands shamed in a Skimmington? But, before I could utter a word, she had clumsily but effectively put me inside her. I was on the brink and could not stop, until she gave a cry of pain and pulled back. I checked myself but her nails dug into my back as she thrust me back into her and we came together in a confusion of pain and pleasure. She instantly rolled away and lay panting with her back towards me. ‘Are you all right?’ She nodded and curled up to sleep. ‘What was all that?’ ‘Did you not like it, sir?’ she murmured. ‘It’s called world upside down.’ It was a well-worn phrase describing the chaos after the war, vividly illustrated in a pamphlet by a man wearing his britches on his head and his boots on his hands. Now it seemed to have entered the bedroom. ‘World – world –? Who on earth told you that?’ ‘Lucy.’ I was outraged. ‘You talk about our love-making with that woman?’ Lucy Hay, the Countess of Carlisle, had been the mistress of John Pym, leader of the opposition to the King. Since he had died, there had been great speculation about who was now sharing her bed. Anne sat up, fully awake, her gown half off. Her belly was slacker, her breasts full, but her neck was thinner, her cheeks pinched. ‘We talk about how a woman should keep a man when she has just had a child. About what to do when – when it is difficult to, to make love … That’s all.’ ‘All!’ She hid her face on my neck and I held her to me. I could feel her heart pounding. ‘We should wait,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘You know what the doctor –’ She pulled away. ‘Wait? I want another child in my belly before you go off again!’ She spoke so loudly and ferociously I clamped my hand over her mouth. There was silence for a moment, then a cry from Liz, broken off by a stuttering cough. ‘I will not be going away again.’ ‘You will. I know.’ Liz gave a long, piercing wail. ‘She’s hungry. Could you not go to her?’ ‘Women who are in milk can’t conceive. The wet-nurse fed her. Don’t you want another child?’ ‘Yes, but when you are well.’ ‘I am well.’ I put my hand over her mouth again as footsteps stumbled past the door. I listened to Jane’s soothing, sleepy voice, the clink of a spoon against a pot of some syrup, until the coughing eventually ceased. Anne ran her finger gently down my nose and along my lips. She dropped her gaze demurely. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I will not do that again, sir, if it displeases you.’ I swallowed. I could not get out of my head the vision of her being above me and began to be aroused again. She laughed out loud at my expression. ‘You’re like a small boy who’s just been told he can’t have a pie!’ As I moved to her, she stopped me with a raised finger. ‘Wait, wait, wait! Promise me you are Thomas Stonehouse, and not that stupid Tom Neave.’ I put on my deepest gentleman’s voice. I enjoyed being a gentleman when it was a game. ‘I am Thomas Stonehouse –’ ‘I mean it!’ She clenched her fists. ‘Why do you put on that stupid voice? Why do you quarrel with Lord Stonehouse? You can get on with him so well when you want to!’ ‘When I do what he wants.’ ‘Please, Tom!’ ‘All right.’ ‘Promise? Promise you will not quarrel with him when he gets back from Newcastle.’ ‘I promise.’ ‘Touch the bed.’ When we were children we made solemn vows by touching the apple tree. Now we touched our marriage bed. Being a great lady was as much a game for her as being a gentleman was for me. But for her it was a deadly serious game. I looked at her knotted hands, her earnest, determined face, even lovelier in its fragile, faded pallor. I felt a deep, swelling surge of love for her. Being a gentleman at that moment seemed a most desirable thing to be. No more fighting. Sleeping in my own bed. Or hers. I touched the bed-head. ‘I promise.’ When the letter arrived next morning it felt like too much of a coincidence. I could not believe she had not known, before coming to my room, that Lord Stonehouse was on his way back. But she looked so shocked that I could ever think she would dissemble like that, and said it so charmingly, and was so full of excitement, and fussed so much over my linen and over a button on my blue velvet suit – in short, it was so much as if we had just been married all over again that I was completely disarmed and able to read the letter, if not with equanimity, with more composure than otherwise. Lord Stonehouse, as frugal with words as he was with money, presented his compliments and would appreciate me calling at Queen Street at noon sharp. 5 (#ulink_bf9661c2-3bf9-56b9-9711-aea455caef2b) Only in Queen Street, from where Lord Stonehouse ran the Committee of Acquisition and Intelligence, was it business as usual. The title was a euphemism for plunder, but since everything had been plundered, spying had become its main occupation. Lord Stonehouse looked much the same, although there were more medicines on his desk along with the wine he habitually drank while signing papers. The fire burned brightly; there was never any shortage of coal in Queen Street. He did not ask me to sit, but waved me to the same spot on the carpet where I had stood as a bastard apprentice, long before he had declared me his heir. He wasted no time on preliminaries. I had been sent to that part of Essex to improve relations. They were now at their worst since the end of the war. I had made a most dangerous enemy in Challoner. Why had I not let him hang the wretch? I winced inwardly, seeing again that raw, bleeding flesh. But I said nothing, determined to keep my promise to Anne. It was the price I paid for the house she loved, for the children, for my fine bucket boots, the fall of my exquisite lace collar, and the thought of more nights in a world upside down. I came out of my reverie as he brought his fist down on the desk. ‘Lost your voice? That’s new. That’s something, at least! You have lost that part of Essex to us as well.’ He banged his fist on a bundle of papers. ‘Nothing but petitions from the people there. Disband the army. Cromwell’s only bargaining point. Holles will do it. His Presbyterians are in control of Parliament. Or have you become such a fool you do not realise that?’ I hung my head, murmuring that I did. Denzil Holles, who led the Presbyterians in Parliament, hated Cromwell. He had sued for peace during the war, eager to reach a settlement with the King at almost any price. ‘Not only do you not hand the thief over to justice, he’s now deserted!’ He was flinging the Essex petitions into a tray as I came out of my torpor. ‘Scogman?’ ‘What?’ ‘He’s alive?’ ‘Of course the wretch is alive. Very much alive, unfortunately. Why do you think I’ve sent for you?’ Lord Stonehouse pulled out a pamphlet from the jumble of petitions, and flung it at me. It had a neat play on the New Model Army in its headline, which I had to admire: New Model Thieves Let Robber Escape. The pamphleteer had had a field day. In his lurid prose, Scogman became the most wanted man in Essex, the silver spoon a priceless collection of plate. A woodblock depicted him with one tooth and a devil’s tail. Scogman alive! I felt a lift of spirits that no lace collar could give me. The most wanted man in Essex! I could not keep a smile from my face when I thought of Challoner’s puce-faced reaction. ‘You find it amusing, sir, do you?’ I straightened my face hastily. ‘No, no, no, my lord. I am, er, concerned about the inaccuracy of the report.’ ‘Standards were higher in your day as a pamphleteer, were they?’ Sometimes I could not make him out. Was there an edge of mockery in his voice, a sign that the worst of the storm was over? ‘It was a spoon, my lord, not plate. Not even silver.’ ‘Thirty pieces of silver,’ he murmured, staring into space. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’ He gave me a baleful look and stared into the fire. There was a silence apart from the click of the coals and the drumming of his fingers on his old leather desk. He broke it abruptly. ‘For your ears only. We have the King.’ I went forward impulsively. ‘Congratulations, my lord.’ He waved me away, a frown forming. ‘Well, well, there’s more to it. Unfortunately. I’ll come to that.’ But he could not contain his exuberance, and his face lit up again. ‘D’you know how we got His Majesty? We bought him! As good as. He was going to do a deal with the Scots but had to accept their religion. Charles loves the warmth of his Anglican ritual, and they chilled him to the bloody marrow with their damp kirks and bored him senseless with their gloomy hairsplitting.’ He took up his wine and then – it was unheard of – poured me one. He sprang up, animated, almost young again. ‘Warwick sat there. Moneybags Bedford there – what are you standing like a loon for, boy? Sit down! Sit down! Oh, of course we were paying for the Scottish army to leave. On the face of it. For services rendered – coming to our aid. You don’t buy a King, do you?’ He put on a shocked look, then laughed. ‘The grasping Scottish tinkers wanted nearly a million and a half pounds! For a King. Beaten. We knocked them down to four hundred thousand. Four hundred thousand.’ Lord Stonehouse relished the figure, as he savoured the taste of wine on his tongue. ‘In two instalments.’ I had never seen him so lively. He finished his glass and stood over the fire. ‘Newcastle fishwives threw rotting herring at the Scots as they left, crying “Judas!”, and I bought a shipload of coal. Warmest coal I’ve ever burned.’ He kicked at the fire, oblivious of the smouldering coals which singed his boot. Flames lit his face, throwing into sharp relief his aquiline nose, which was reflected in the family symbol of the falcon. For a moment the shadows took his years away and he stood there, proud, full of belief in himself, as he must have been when he first built his great house, Highpoint. But as the fire burned higher, the lines returned to his face and the stoop to his back. ‘Now we’ve lost him.’ ‘The King? The King has escaped?’ ‘No, no, no. But almost as bad. Holles and his Presbyterians have him. He’s in the middle of England under house arrest. Holdenby House, Northamptonshire, guarded by one of Holles’s Presbyterian regiments.’ ‘Any settlement with the King will have to be ratified by Parliament!’ He gave me a bleak look. ‘Who controls Parliament?’ I swallowed my wine. ‘We must win the debate. It’s what we fought for. Parliament.’ ‘Majority opinion?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘All well and good.’ He went back to his desk. ‘When it’s on your side.’ He opened a drawer that was double-locked, the one I had nicknamed his dirty tricks drawer. ‘What matters is not the debate, but what you can dig out beforehand. I must find out what Holles is up to. I had an informant high up in his inner circle I was hoping to catch. Unfortunately, I’ve lost him. I think you are the man to reel him back in.’ This was going far better than I had feared. But I looked at him warily as he drew out a fat bundle of papers. What exactly did ‘reel him back in’ mean? The last thing I wanted was to be drawn into Lord Stonehouse’s shady network of spies and informers. I wanted to defeat, perhaps even convince Holles, but by argument, not dirty tricks. ‘I will do all I can to help, my lord, but …’ I groped for a diplomatic way of putting it. ‘But?’ ‘After the battle of Naseby,’ I said, ‘I accepted the sword of the Royalist Jacob Astley.’ ‘Lord Astley. Did you now.’ ‘Astley said: “You have done your work, and may go and play, unless you fall out among yourselves.”’ He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin. ‘A good aphorism. I must remember it. Meaning we should not quarrel, but reach agreement?’ I beamed at him. The wine put a rosy glow on everything. The firelight gleamed on the old oak furniture that smelt of polish, and on the jewelled falcon perched on his signet ring. This was the moment. I was on the verge of suggesting he put me up as an MP to fight Holles in Parliament when he struck like the bird on the ring, his voice acid with contempt. ‘I would as soon reach agreement with Holles as I would with a poisonous snake. Don’t you understand? He has the King! The English Presbyterians are not like the dreary Scots! They hold him at a fine house, where Charles practises his religion, and holds his court. Holles will push through all the concessions the King wants, just to have him back on the throne. In a year or two the King will have his own army, dismiss Parliament –’ ‘Cromwell will never agree to such concessions!’ ‘Cromwell has given up.’ This was too much. Lord Stonehouse had sat here throughout the war, his arse warmed by his coals. He had no idea what Cromwell and his army had been through. ‘Cromwell is ill, my lord,’ I said coldly. ‘Ill? Cromwell ill? He should have my years. My bladder. My stone. Ill? A grateful Parliament has conferred on him ?2,500 a year. From estates I confiscated from the Marquis of Winchester. Cromwell ill, sir? He has drawn his pension, that’s the only thing wrong with Cromwell. Meanwhile we are in danger of losing all we fought for.’ ‘Holles has no soldiers to launch a coup.’ ‘He has Poyntz’s northern army.’ That at least was true. Major-General Poyntz’s soldiers had been recruited from strict Presbyterians. ‘They are no match for the New Model.’ ‘Yet.’ He pointed to the petitions heaped up on his desk. ‘Holles is seeking to disband half the New Model and send the rest to Ireland.’ ‘Nobody wants to go to Ireland. Cromwell will never let him disband –’ ‘Cromwell, Cromwell.’ The name seemed to stick in his throat and he began to cough. ‘Cromwell is counting his pension and waiting for God to tell him what to do. Until God speaks or someone puts a keg of gunpowder under his arse in the form of solid proof of what Holles is up to, he won’t budge. I was on the verge of getting that proof from my informant but –’ He burst into an explosion of coughing. I picked up his wine. ‘Not wine … Cupboard … Not that one! Cordial …’ I opened the cupboard. In it was a miniature of a strikingly beautiful woman with greenish eyes. With it was a partly folded letter in which I caught only the opening line: This is a true likeness of … ‘Quick!’ I pulled out a flask and poured him a greenish liquid which smelt pleasantly of cinnamon. He swallowed some, spurted it out, mopped his face and took another sip or two, until the coughing gradually stopped. I moved to return the flask, but he stopped me and did so himself. I had disturbed the miniature so it was on the edge of the cupboard shelf. When he moved away, the miniature was no longer there. It was a clumsy surreptitious movement, and for a moment he did not meet my eyes. He looked almost human for a moment. Surely, I thought, he’s not fallen in love. At his age! The idea brought a smile to my face. It was wiped off immediately when he rounded on me. ‘I don’t know what you have to smile about. You have no idea what you’ve done! The informant who was going to tell me what Holles is up to is Sir Lewis Challoner.’ It was a world upside down in this room too, where nothing was as it seemed. ‘You sent me there to keep the army under control,’ I protested. ‘How could I know there was anything else going on!’ ‘Just so, just so,’ he conceded. ‘I should have told you. But I could not afford to trust you. You and your damned scruples. Your radical views. You might have told anybody! I thought that your desire to be an MP would keep you in check. But now – now, I can’t afford not to trust you.’ He began coughing again and drank more cordial before he told me that Challoner had been planning to meet him, until the incident with Scogman. ‘Challoner knows Holles’s plans. He should do. He’s part of them. Why do you think there is so much trouble between the people and the army in Essex? Challoner is fomenting it.’ ‘Why should he tell you Holles’s plans? He hates Cromwell.’ ‘He loves land more.’ Everything fell into place. I remembered Challoner’s sudden burst of friendliness, his winks and slaps on the back as he rhapsodised about the beauty of the countryside. ‘The farm, you mean.’ ‘Oh, more than that. The estate Parliament seized. I was negotiating to sell it on favourable terms if he came over to us.’ I winced. ‘And I thought his friendliness was because of my diplomacy.’ ‘Diplomacy?’ He laughed. He patted the bundle of papers he had taken from the drawer. ‘This is the real diplomacy, Tom. Forget all this nonsense about being an MP. MPs are rhetorical froth. I want you to actually do something. You must apologise.’ I did not think I was hearing him correctly. ‘Apologise?’ ‘To Sir Lewis. You made him a laughing stock.’ ‘You expect me to crawl to that man?’ ‘It is a matter of honour to him.’ ‘It is a matter of honour to me! Or do you think I have no honour because of where I come from?’ He locked his hands together, rested his chin on them and gave me a long stare before opening the file. Whether he got it by money or extortion I had no idea. A creeping sense of unease began to fill me as he read some reports and showed me others, concealing names. There were greasy scraps of paper about secret meetings between Holles and the Governor of the Tower, details of armouries and the strength of soldiers guarding them, which, Lord Stonehouse claimed, had been seized from a spy of Holles. How much was true, how much fabrication, and how much distorted by his own fears, I did not know. But, in a voice growing hoarse with speaking, it was what he said next, in a dead, tired, matter-of-fact tone, that chilled me. ‘If there is a coup, Cromwell will be removed. I will be in the Tower. So will you. At the right time there will probably be trumped-up charges. We will be lucky to escape execution. What would happen to your little son, Luke, my grandson, I do not know.’ His voice petered out. He looked as exhausted as he had been lively earlier, his eyes half-hooded. It was so quiet I could hear a distant hawker cry, and the crackling of the coals in the fireplace. He put the papers away, the keys rattling as he double-locked the drawer, a faint echo of the gloomy litany of sound in the corridors of the Tower where I had once visited a pamphleteer imprisoned for sedition. If there was any chance he was right, what did my honour matter? But then the rattle of those keys he always carried brought back Scogman, in chains, dragged by Stalker’s horse, stumbling, falling, dragged from lane to ditch and back again. ‘I will not apologise to that man.’ ‘You will do as I say!’ I said nothing. ‘Get out.’ He began coughing again, knocking the glass of cordial over. I went to help him, but he reacted so violently and was so red in the face that, fearing I was doing more harm than good, I went for Mr Cole. 6 (#ulink_23415607-8acd-5f1c-bd35-ccd5687fd388) Anne’s reaction was almost as violent as Lord Stonehouse’s – I had promised to remain on good terms, what if Lord Stonehouse was right, what would happen to us? I told her about the miniature he had concealed, to divert her from fears about the coup, but it only added fresh ones. Who was this woman? This is a true likeness. Wasn’t that the sort of language people used when they were setting up a meeting with a view to marriage. What would happen to us if … I got no sleep that night. Lord Stonehouse was old, cantankerous, suspicious to the point of madness, but what if he was right about the coup? The fears gradually receded with daylight. I was reassured when I learned a week later that Cromwell had recovered and returned to the House. I wrote to him, in the hope that he might offer me some position. To prepare for an interview, I saw my tailor, Mr Pepys. It is humiliating to discover from your tailor you have no money. I was careful with my allowance from Lord Stonehouse, and realised he had stopped it. I could feel myself going a deep red. Mr Pepys was very delicate about it. No doubt Queen Street had made some error? He would happily have made me the new suit I craved for, but I knew he had a large family to support, including the expenses of his son Samuel at St Paul’s, and I would not go into debt with him. It was even worse telling Anne. ‘And what do we live on?’ she said. ‘My army pay.’ ‘And when do we get that?’ I did not know. Negotiations were dragging on in Parliament. I had read that Cromwell, still too busy to see me, said the New Model Army would lay down its arms when Parliament commanded it to do so. That did not sound like a political crisis. What upset me most was that Adams, our ostler, was taken back to Queen Street by Lord Stonehouse. Luke moped for the loss of his old friend. But he had a habit of inventing creatures of fancy, sometimes talking to Adams as if he was still there. One day Luke cried that he liked the new ostler, a handsome soldier who had let him ride and said he was a fine horseman. He told me after I discovered he had taken the horse from the stable on his own, which I had strictly forbidden. When I told him he must not invent stories to cover up the truth, it upset me even more when he refused to confess but cried: ‘It’s true. It’s true. There was a man!’ Although it was May, there was frost at night with cold north winds driving sharp showers of rain. The emerging buds in the apple tree seemed to shrink back in themselves. We all got colds and Liz’s persisted, so we put off the baptism with Mr Tooley until the weather was better. Anne and I scarcely spoke to one another until the letter arrived. It was from Lord Stonehouse’s eldest son, Richard, in Paris. Despite my discovery that he was my real father, Richard had never acknowledged me as his son. I had not seen or heard from him since the battle of Edgehill five years ago, when we had fought on opposite sides and he had almost killed me. His hand, as he admitted, was as bad as ever: Dear Thomas, I am no better at this riting game and have throwne this away or its brothers more times than I can Rembere over the years. But nowe the war is over and Wee are at peace I must write to say I no you can never see me as your Father. Howe can you when I have done such Base & Bad things. But the Warre has changed me. I needed to be away from my Father to find myself, that at anye rate is what a Priest here says. We are on differant sides but I believe I have done mye Duty to mye King & from what I heare you are a Man of Honoure and a brave soldier who has done youre Duty to what you believe. I doe not deserve nor expect a replye but if you finde it in your hearte to forgive me a letter left with Jean de Monteuril, the French envoy in London will find your father, Richard Stonehouse His signature was unreadable. The letter was so totally unexpected and so difficult to decipher, with myriads of blots and crossings out, that the first time I read it I sat bemused, still, as shocked as if it was a letter from the dead. I read it again. If the first shock was that he had written at all, the second was that he had asked me to forgive him. Was he genuine, or was he dissembling? The third shock was to find I had feelings for the man I knew to be my father. He was dissolute and violent, but how much was that a reaction to his father and his perception of me as a usurper? Lord Stonehouse had brought me up in secret, but had once shown Richard my writing to shame him about his own hand. Was it any wonder that when he found out who I was, he had come to hate me? I knew what he had gone through at the hands of his father, for was I not having the same whip cracked at me? It was the effort Richard had clearly put into writing it himself which began to persuade me he was sincere. He despised writing: scrivener’s work as he put it. But I now felt his childish struggles had left him ashamed of his scrawl. I was in my study. It was but a poky little room, with no fire, but it was the place I would most miss if we were forced to leave Drury Lane. On the small table, which I had in lieu of a desk, I had written some ideas for my interview with Cromwell. I wrote a good Italian hand, in sharp contrast to my father’s chaotic script. The third time I read his letter, I read not the words, but the effort that had gone into making them. I felt the painful determination to form letters, the sudden bursts of irritation as words tumbled illegibly into one another, and the anger in slashed loops and crossed ‘t’s. Anger at me, or at himself? Whole sentences had been crossed out. Other men would have made a fair copy, but he was incapable of that. Or they would have got a scrivener to do it. But he had wanted to write to me himself. He did not know, he could not imagine, that it was that effort, as much or more than the words themselves, that moved me. Perhaps he had changed. I was afraid of believing it, but could not help myself. I suppose it is always there, in an abandoned child, that hope for reconciliation. I told myself I was being stupid as I felt the onset of tears. Anne touched my shoulder. I had no idea how long she had been in the room. There was a sympathy in her touch which had been missing since I had refused to work with Lord Stonehouse. I blinked back the tears and handed her the letter. ‘What a hypocrite.’ ‘You do not think he is sincere?’ ‘Do you?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You don’t know? He tried to kill you!’ There was a knock at the door. I stared at the letter, half-hearing Jane tell Anne that Liz had had another bad night and been unable to keep her milk down. Anne began to follow Jane, but turned back. ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Invite him to supper?’ ‘Please don’t joke. What are you going to do?’ ‘I have no idea, Anne.’ I picked up a quill, drew my fingers down the feather and felt the point. I did not intend to write a letter. It was an automatic reaction, to help me think. I was still dazed by the father I had all but forgotten, suddenly taking on human shape. ‘You’re not going to answer it, are you?’ ‘Of course I’m going to answer it.’ ‘What are you going to say?’ I was conscious of Jane hovering on the stairs. ‘That is my affair,’ I said coldly. She told Jane she would be up shortly, then closed the door. She was trembling, and her cold had left her voice raw and hoarse. ‘It is as much my affair as yours, sir.’ ‘This is the world upside down, is it? When a woman tells a man what to do?’ ‘Has her say, sir, has her say. While you have been fighting I have built this place up. I have flattered Lord Stonehouse, sympathised with his illnesses, suffered his moods, his suspicions, his rages, his belches, his farts, smiling while I wanted to scream. When Luke was born I felt as if I was being torn apart. I thought I would not live.’ I got up and wanted to hold her but she pushed me away, telling me with a concentrated fury what she had been through while I was away. Things I never realised. I knew Lord Stonehouse had acknowledged me as his heir only out of expediency, when Parliament suspected his loyalty, but did I have any idea how shallow that acknowledgement was? He wrote secretly to Richard. She knew that from Mr Cole. Oh, she flattered him too. Promised him preferment when I inherited. Did I not know that? Did I really think it was a world upside down? It was the same old world, greased and oiled by favours – or the promise of favours when the King came back. Everyone was jostling for position except me, she said, who believed the world was changing into a different, a better, place. Surely I realised, she went on, I was still a whim as far as Lord Stonehouse was concerned. It rarely happened that a bastard inherited such a great estate. It was almost unheard of that his wife was a commoner – a commoner with no dowry, no lands to bring to the estate. If Lord Stonehouse was planning to marry again, it was not for love, as I saw it, but for another Stonehouse. Another male. We were a fall-back, a second string, if there was no other Stonehouse blood left to inherit. When she said this, I felt I had known it all the time, but never put it into words. What I really cared about was the attainable – becoming an MP. Even that he had brushed to one side. My anger mounted as she told me how she was treated, rebuffed when she did not conceive at first. Lord Stonehouse was not at home. Or he was in meetings. There was no coal. Only straw on the floor. Why on earth did she not tell me all this? Because I would not have grovelled. I would have ruined everything. Only men had the luxury of pride, she said bitterly. In my brief, snatched visits during the war, what for me had been love, for her had been desperation, followed by the continual, gnawing fear of being barren, and of further rejection from Lord Stonehouse’s favour. Had I not seen the straw on the floor, or realised they were burning chopped-up furniture for me? She had tried to find out if the entail on Lord Stonehouse’s will had been removed. The entail was the contract by which the landed classes double-locked and bolted the estate to the eldest son. Mr Cole knew most things, but that was a secret only Lord Stonehouse and his lawyer knew. Her voice grew hoarser. I could not stop her. I did not want to. It was like a boil being lanced. She had not slept much because of Liz. She wore no paint. Lines I had barely noticed before cracked her beautiful skin. Her hair hung lifeless. She was so thin she looked as though she would break. Only her blue eyes crackled with furious, burning energy. ‘Luke furnished this place. When Lord Stonehouse thought Liz was going to be another boy the stables were built. Those fine horses arrived. Stallions.’ She put some of her old mockery into the word. ‘I do not want to go through having another child, but I will go on and on until we have what we want. I have done all that and I am not allowed my say?’ Her voice had shredded to a croaking echo. I held her tightly, stroking her, feeling her bones protruding from her skin. ‘What we want? That’s what matters. I want you, I want you,’ I whispered. ‘Do you?’ I kissed her. ‘Nothing else matters. We don’t have to have another child. Not yet. I will stay away.’ ‘But I want – I want you near me.’ She kissed me passionately. ‘I’ll be careful.’ She half-smiled. ‘You never are.’ She stroked the scar on my cheek with a sudden tenderness. ‘Scar-face.’ ‘Bag of bones.’ She buried her head in my chest and we held each other close, until the rasping of her breath slowed and I could feel our hearts beating together. ‘We don’t need all this,’ I said, gesturing the house away. She said – ferocious again – she couldn’t bear to lose it. Not now. It would be like showing a child a magnificent meal, then snatching it from her. ‘And you need it. To be an MP. Change the world.’ If that was half-mocking, half-serious, her next words were in earnest. ‘And you need Lord Stonehouse.’ ‘No. I won’t crawl to him. Particularly after what he did to you.’ She clenched her fists in frustration. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have told you all this!’ I unpeeled her fingers and smoothed them between my hands. ‘Better we do things our own way.’ I remembered Nehemiah’s words. ‘Be beholden to no one.’ ‘How?’ ‘Cromwell will help me.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Sure?’ I laughed. ‘He’s the most powerful man in Britain.’ I told her I must go to the House and see him, and got my papers together. Still she lingered, staring at Richard’s letter. ‘You know why he’s written to you, don’t you?’ I smiled at her expression of absolute certainty. Sometimes she had the air of an astrologer predicting the future. ‘No. Do you?’ ‘Because he knows about your quarrel with Lord Stonehouse.’ Since the Royalists were based in Paris, where Queen Henrietta held court, letters were censored and delayed, if they arrived at all. ‘Unlikely. That was over a fortnight ago. The news would hardly have reached him in Paris.’ ‘It would reach him here.’ I laughed. ‘He’d never come here! It’s too dangerous.’ Unlike many Royalists, Richard had never surrendered. He was close to Queen Henrietta, a Catholic, and Cromwell had intercepted papers that proved his involvement in the present Irish rebellion. ‘If he was caught here, he’d be in the Tower. Not even Lord Stonehouse could save him.’ The French envoy’s address had suggested Paris. But there were no French markings. It was not dated or sealed. The only mark was a posthorn, such as might have been used in any London alehouse. ‘It’s a coincidence. The letter and the quarrel.’ ‘Do you think so?’ ‘No.’ I shivered suddenly, violently. The thick, smeared scrawl, with the savage sword-like crossing of every ‘t’, brought memories flooding back of when he had hired people to kill me, when I used to check every alehouse before I entered, jump at every sound in the street. I crumpled it up. ‘I’ll burn it,’ I said. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Take it to Cromwell.’ 7 (#ulink_7c6421ca-face-5733-bac7-26ddbce654d7) You could hear the noise in Whitehall, sense the tension in the shops and stalls of Westminster Hall. Cromwell was back. There were rumours that he and the Presbyterian leader, Denzil Holles, had come to blows. That the army was in revolt. A coin to the Sergeant got me into the lobby. I waited for an opportunity to see Cromwell, my father’s letter burning a hole in my pocket. The debate grew in intensity. I could hear Cromwell’s voice, rising over shouts of derision. There is no more thrilling place than the House when you are part of it, and no worse, confusing place when you are out of it. I was even jealous of the printers’ runners. Reporting was forbidden and they smuggled out speeches, as I did years before. When the debate was adjourned I saw one runner, illegal copy stuffed in his britches, wriggling his way through a crowd of arguing MPs. He was as snot-nosed and eel-slippery as I used to be, but a coin from my pocket stopped him. I deciphered the scrivener’s scrawl. The debate was about the army petition I had seen in Nehemiah’s room, for pay and indemnities. ‘H,’ I read. That must be Holles. I could not believe what he was quoted as saying: ‘The soldiers who have signed this petition are enemies of the state …’ Enemies of the state? The army that won the war? And was simply asking for its pay? There was a shout. The boy snatched the papers and ran. ‘Seize him.’ The MP who gave chase was young and would have the legs on the boy. I felt responsible for having stopping him. And I was a runner at heart. It was instinctive. I stuck out my foot. The MP went flying, arms flailing. I just managed to catch him to break the worst of his fall and help him up. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ He glared at me angrily, but my suit, if old, was of the finest silk, and I spoke with such concern, in my best Stonehouse, that he stopped short of accusing me. Someone else drew him away, telling him they had a motion to draw up. I recognised the sharp, vinegary tones immediately. I had tripped up Denzil Holles’s bag carrier. It was stupid, but I could not resist it. I was longing for action, and if I could not debate Holles in the House, this was second best. I bowed. ‘Lord Holles.’ He spoke through me, to the bag carrier. ‘Stonehouse. Comes from the same filth as that pamphleteer.’ I bowed again. ‘The same filth, my lord, who won the war, and whom you are calling enemies of the state.’ He whirled round. He was about fifty, and had eyes as sharp and vinegary as his voice. ‘Are you one of the men behind this wretched petition?’ I was about to answer when a hand clamped over my shoulder and I found myself staring into Cromwell’s eyes. He always seemed to look not at you, but into your very soul with his piercing eyes, somewhere between grey and green. His face was almost the colour of his buff uniform: he had not bothered to change before coming into the House. A wart above his left eyebrow quivered as he steered me away. ‘Don’t make it worse,’ he said. ‘We are losing the debate.’ ‘Keep your puppies away from me, Cromwell!’ Holles shouted. Cromwell did not respond, going towards the corridor that led to his office with another MP, Ireton. Mortified, I plunged after him, asking to see him, bumping into various people as I tried to catch his attention. Either Cromwell did not hear me, or he chose not to. ‘Make an appointment,’ Ireton said curtly. I hated Ireton at that moment. In fact I hated Ireton at any moment. I hated him because he was thirty-six against my twenty-two, because with his sunken, hollow eyes he was broodingly serious and never laughed, because he was cold and rational where I was impulsive and, most of all, because he was Cromwell’s son-in-law and always at his elbow. I stood dejected, watching them walk away. Then Cromwell turned and beckoned. If you had ridden with Cromwell in close combat you were one of his soldiers. Whatever your rank he knew your name. Whatever your weaknesses, if you struggled to overcome them he would stand by you. He never bragged, putting his victories down to God’s grace. When he talked to a regiment every single soldier felt he was talking to him. However tired he was, and I could see how drained he was after his illness, he had time, however little, for one of his soldiers. I shot over the lobby as if I was still a runner, then managed to control myself. ‘You’ll have to wait.’ Ireton scowled. ‘In there.’ I walked where he had pointed, into an anteroom so stuffed with drafts of speeches and yellowing parliamentary papers the door would not close properly. I sat squashed between a pile of ordinances and some old papers about the draining of the East Anglian fens, while Cromwell had meeting after meeting. Boots clattered, voices droned. Cromwell was making arrangements to ride to Essex next day to hear the soldiers’ demands. In that stuffy, cramped space I nodded off. It was Ireton’s words that woke me with a start. ‘… French boat. They captured one of the sailors, but the man they were landing got away.’ Over a pile of papers, through the partly open door, I could see Cromwell reacting sharply. ‘When was this?’ ‘A month ago.’ ‘Who was he?’ ‘I think you can guess. He was an excellent swordsman. He killed two of the customs men. He’s somewhere in the City – he’s been spotted at the Exchange. I have men out looking for him.’ A month ago. The dates fitted with Richard’s letter. So did the swordsmanship. I felt again the prick of the sword he held at my throat after Edgehill, touched the scar on my cheek where it had been cut open by one of his men. A surge of excitement ran through me. At one stroke I could have everything. It was my ticket to working with Cromwell, to becoming an MP. But it would have to be done so Lord Stonehouse did not know I was involved Clever, clever Anne, who had put this idea into my mind. But she was wrong in one thing. She thought I had swallowed Lord Stonehouse speaking of me as his heir. I was a fool, but not that much of a fool. I had gloried in the possibility, but in my heart of hearts I knew it would never happen. A bastard and a printer’s daughter? That was why I kept my feet in Thomas Neave’s boots, while wearing Thomas Stonehouse’s plumed hat. Because I was determined to be my own man. But this changed everything. With Richard out of the way, I would be the sole male heir. From that moment, hemmed in by a cage of musty papers, I could afford the luxury of belief. All this ran through my mind as Cromwell closed the door on Ireton and returned to his desk, eyes half-lidded in weariness. Reflecting this sudden expansion of my inner world, I tilted my chair backwards, knocking over a pile of ordinances. Cromwell pushed the door fully open. ‘Why, Tom! I forgot you were there.’ I scrambled up in confusion, picking up the papers. ‘Leave them, leave them. That is the Blasphemy Ordinance. Hanging people for denying the Trinity? The Presbyterians will never get that through.’ He unearthed the letter I had sent, asking to work with him. ‘Work with me, Tom?’ he laughed. ‘I hope not. We are at peace. Disbanding.’ ‘I mean here.’ ‘Here? In this Tower of Babel? Trying to bring all these contentious voices together? You would be bored to death.’ ‘Not working with you.’ I meant it. As soon as I sat opposite him I realised how much I missed working with him. He made men not only believe in what they were doing, but believe in themselves. His brooding self-criticism, constantly questioning his own ability and his own frailty, led people to be much more open to his criticism of them. And so everyone worked with a common purpose, knowing that he drove no one more relentlessly than he drove himself. I drew out Richard’s letter and opened it, glimpsing the words ‘forgive me … your father.’ Once again, the effort of that laboured scrawl brought a rush of feeling that caught me unawares. My eyes pricked and I was unable to speak. Suppose Richard was genuine? What if he had changed? I dismissed it. A man like that, who sent people to kill me? ‘What have you got there, Tom?’ ‘I …’ It was not so much that I believed Richard was genuine; more that I knew I would never forgive myself if I did not at least try to find out before giving him away. ‘What is it, Tom?’ Cromwell said, more sharply, reaching out for the letter. I pulled it away. ‘It – it is from a gentleman supporting me to be an MP.’ ‘Lord Stonehouse will support you.’ ‘He has refused to.’ ‘And you expect me to?’ His refusal was implicit in the question. His manner became brusque. I had seen him reject people asking for favours many times before in this abrupt way, but it was humiliating when it happened to me. I stuffed my father’s letter in my bag and went to the door. ‘Wait. You have quarrelled with Lord Stonehouse? He has cut your allowance?’ He knew everything. Probably, I thought bitterly, Lord Stonehouse had told him, blocking any chance of him putting me forward as an MP. What happened next was even more humiliating, although he did it with the best of intentions, in the manner of a helping hand for an old army colleague down on his luck. He took me down the corridor to an office where a clerk was transcribing his last speech. A warrant made out to Thomas Stonehouse for army pay had the amount already filled in. Cromwell signed an army warrant in his large, rolling script, clapped me on the shoulders, and went. The clerk checked the amount of pay I was owed in a ledger and completed the army warrant. He wore a fine linen shirt, rolled back at the wrists to protect it from ink splashes. It was the splashes, rather than the man, that I recognised. ‘Mr Ink,’ I cried, flinging my arms round the man whom I had known as a humble scrivener at Westminster, when he had smuggled out Mr Pym’s speeches for me to run with them to the printer, speeches which had begun the great rebellion against the King. ‘I am Mr Clarke,’ he said. ‘William.’ There was a hint of reproof in his bow. His dark grey doublet was severe, but fashionably unbuttoned at the waist to show the quality of his linen. ‘You have a new name and fine new clothes,’ I said. He told me Clarke had always been his name. It was I, as a child, who had christened him Mr Ink, but now he had risen in the world he would appreciate being called William Clarke, Esq. It was said with a wink to show that somewhere inside those new clothes was my old friend Mr Ink, but it added to my feeling that everyone was rising in the world but me. When I left that feeling stayed with me, and the army warrant in my pocket only reminded me of my humiliation. I walked slowly but reached Drury Lane all too soon. As I went through the passage, I thought of my father, wanting to answer his letter. Anne looked at me expectantly as I was going into my study. ‘I did not tell Cromwell,’ I said. ‘Whatever he’s done, Richard is my father. I’ll write to him. See if he is sincere.’ I went to close the door but still she stood there. ‘Is that all?’ Silently I gave her the army warrant. She stared at Mr Ink’s elegant hand, and the rolling loops of Cromwell’s signature. For four months’ back pay I had been awarded eleven pounds, six shillings and threepence. ‘You fool,’ she said. I thought she was going to tear it up. I snatched it from her so it did tear. There was a rush of blood to my head. A roaring in my ears. I gripped her by the shoulders and God knows what I would have done to her if I had not seen Luke staring from the hall. Anne turned away and, without a word, took Luke by the hand and led him upstairs. 8 (#ulink_cee989ee-cd13-5b11-9735-c677516e8ac0) My power with words deserted me when it came to answering Richard’s letter. I balked at the first hurdle. Dear Richard? Dear Father? Dear Sir Richard? The coldly formal Sir? In the end, I opted for the last. I wrote: Sir, I do not know what to write (true). After what you have done to me in the past you will forgive me for feeling suspicious (to put it mildly). I believe you are in London. I should report you to the authorities. I have not given you away (at the moment) because I would like to meet to find if you are writing ab imo pectore (the Stonehouse motto: from the heart). I shall be at the Exchange, at the sign of the Bull, tomorrow, Thursday and the following day, at noon. I remain, Sir, yr humble servant, Thomas Stonehouse I waited at the Exchange on those two days with a strange, growing eagerness which gradually turned into disappointment and disillusion. When mail came my heart beat a little faster; but there was no reply. Perhaps Richard had returned to France. Or feared a trap. On one of the visits to the Exchange, being near London Bridge, I remembered my promise to take money to Scogman’s wife and children. My prayers for his survival had been answered and he had become a kind of folk hero to me. I crossed the river to Bankside and went to the address from the regiment list. It was a brothel. When I was woken that night by Liz’s coughing I could still see the whores wiping their eyes as they laughed. ‘Scogman? Married? Give the money to me, dear. I’ll see she gets it! Kids? He scarpers too quickly to give his name to any kids. Scoggy? Give him my undying love, darling.’ I winced as I remembered how, previously, I had lent him an angel, which he still owed me, to send to this starving family. I tried to forget my humiliation by helping Jane to nurse Liz and, since Dr Latchford seemed at a loss, the next morning rode to Spitall Fields to get a herbal syrup from Matthew, the cunning man who had brought me up. Late in life he had had a stroke of good fortune. Unwilling to disappoint anyone, he had always promised a cure for everything, from the plague to a broken heart. Too erratic to be trusted, his business was on the point of failure when he met an apothecary, Nicholas Culpepper, who separated those remedies of Matthew’s which worked, from those which didn’t. And he put his finger on Matthew’s unique ability. While his remedies were unreliable, his knowledge and collection of herbs, from aloe to vervain, were unrivalled. Together they produced simple herbal remedies for the poor. Culpepper infuriated doctors like Latchford by setting himself up as a doctor in Spitall Fields, outside the City, where the College of Physicians had no jurisdiction. Matthew had a room in the apothecary’s house, which, on a gloomy day, was like walking into summer, the air smelling of rosemary, lavender and sage. When I arrived, Matthew was chopping herbs on a bench. One of his eyes was milky blue, and he stooped like a goblin, but he was as lively as ever, and his optimism unquenched. ‘Little Liz! The poor mite! I know exactly what will cure her. It drew three infants back from the grave last week.’ He caught Culpepper’s eyes staring sternly over his spectacles, swallowed and toned down his promises. ‘It will soothe the cough so she can eat more easily and sleep.’ I put the jar of syrup in my saddle pouch and rode back through the City. Crowds were building up, and it was increasingly difficult to get through. They were thickest round the bookstalls and hawkers: there were more pamphlets sold that day than hot pies. From one pamphlet I learned how badly Cromwell had lost the debate. Half the army was to be disbanded, receiving a miserable six weeks’ money in lieu of their long arrears of pay. Another gave an ominous response from the soldiers: not a petition this time, but a set of demands. One called for an apology from Holles for the soldiers being called enemies of the state they had fought for. Another was for full pay. It was signed not by the soldiers, but by men who called themselves agents, or agitators. Levellers. One of the signatories was Nehemiah. Going down Cornhill, there was such a press of people I found it difficult to control my horse and was forced to dismount. The trouble came from a bookshop displaying the sign of the Bible. More people came to it to argue than to buy books. A Presbyterian minister called Edwards was haranguing the crowd. He had written a series of books called Gangraena, the latest an attack on the sins of Cromwell’s army. The gangrene lay in the heresies the army was supposed to spread. Edwards, a tall cadaverous man who wore his hair long, was railing against ‘sectaries’ who broke away from the true Presbyterian Church. A severe-looking Puritan holding a copy of Gangraena, a tome as thick as the Bible, stared directly at me, his expression saying he knew I was one of the heretics. ‘Such people believe in liberty of conscience!’ Edwards cried, as if liberty was worse than the plague. ‘I tell you this. Liberty of conscience leads to thought, thought to error and error to hell.’ I could not stand there silent. ‘So we are not to think for ourselves?’ ‘Not in religion, sir.’ People stood aside as he pushed towards me. ‘A farmer does not expect a weaver to plant his corn, nor a weaver allow a farmer to weave his cloth.’ ‘But if the farmer, or his corn, is bad – what is a man to do? Starve? Can he not plant his own corn?’ ‘Plant his own corn! You heard him. Here is another of your damned sectaries.’ He pushed his face into mine. ‘Because, sir, your corn would come up as tares and weeds – heresies and blasphemies.’ Once I had started I would not give way. The Puritan holding Gangraena with all the reverence of the Bible shook his head despairingly at me. From angry mutterings, the crowd began to jostle and abuse me. It was an astonishing reversal of the mood of the crowds before the war, who had all been for liberty and their rights, whether for religion, a patch of ground or a loaf of bread. Perhaps they now linked liberty to the pillaging soldiers in five years of chaos and war. There was such an aching desire for normality, for order at any price, that people were willing to give away their very thoughts to this narrow-minded churchman. Another voice came from the back of the crowd. ‘I know him! He is a bastard, a devil who pretends to be a lord!’ George’s manner suggested he knew about my rift with Lord Stonehouse. His voice chilled me even more than it had as a child, for at least then I could believe he was the only one who was mad. Now that madness seemed to have infected half London. George pushed his way through the crowd, his face flushed with religious zeal. He had shaken my hand only a few weeks before, but now he levelled a finger at me. ‘I accuse him. He denies he has a soul,’ he cried. There was an abrupt silence. People near me drew away. Others craned forward, breaths stilled, eyes staring. A gob of food slipped unnoticed from the mouth of a man eating a pie. The shop sign creaked as a kite perching on it swooped to snatch the pie the man was holding. Almost nobody laughed, all of them giving way to the minister, his long hair drifting round his face in the wind, his voice soft with disbelief. ‘Do you deny the immortality of the soul, my son?’ In a sense, George’s accusation was true. Every time he beat me he said it was for the good of my soul, until one day I told him that, as I did not have one, he could stop wasting his time. That same perversity brought the words from my mouth. ‘I did when he beat me.’ The Puritan holding Edwards’s book looked at me in horror. Moses when he saw the golden calf could not have acted with more anger than the outraged minister after I uttered those words. ‘He has condemned himself out of his own mouth!’ ‘Blasphemy.’ ‘Heresy.’ ‘Arrest him!’ A stone hit me. I ducked another and tried to draw my sword, but hands seized me. Two cutpurses, under the guise of holding my horse and quietening it, were gradually edging it away. They called it the penny horse lay: if the cutpurses were caught, they demanded a penny for holding it. If they got away, they sold the horse at a farrier outside the walls. I drew my sword, scattering people in front of me, but my sword arm was caught from behind. George grabbed me triumphantly. The minister was shouting for constables. George was about to march me off when something struck his head. A book fell at his feet as he slowly released me and sank to the cobbles. Gangraena. A man came towards me and in my groggy state I thought the Puritan who had been holding the book wanted to claim me as his own arrest, until I looked into his eyes under the stovepipe hat and heard Richard’s cultured, measured, unhurried voice in my ear. ‘I think we should be going. Unless you prefer to lose your horse, rather than your argument?’ He threw my sword at me and stopped the cutpurses at a narrow opening known as Pissing Alley. The stench caused even hardened Londoners to recoil. Another moment and my horse would have been lost in the warren of streets round Leadenhall Market. ‘My friend’s horse, I believe,’ Richard said. One of the cutpurses put his hand on his dagger. The other, looking into Richard’s cold eyes, at odds with his pleasant voice, had more sense. ‘We were only holding it for the gentleman,’ he whined. ‘That’ll be a groat,’ said the man with a dagger sullenly. Two constables were pushing their way through the crowd. Richard drew out a handful of coins and flung them in the air. The cutpurses, half the crowd and one of the constables dived after the rolling coins. Richard grinned as I helped him on the back of my horse. ‘They’ll hang the devil, but take his money.’ The alley was so narrow and twisting we could barely squeeze through. I reined in the horse. Silhouetted at the end were three men. They were not constables who would run after a few coins. Nor did they have on the uniform of the City Trained Band. They were armed and had the tense, edgy watchfulness of people hunting, wearing the buff army jerkin I had worn for so long, and their faces were as tough and seasoned as the leather from which it was made. They were Cromwell’s men. Their voices echoed down the alley. ‘That’s him.’ ‘Sure?’ ‘Positive.’ I glanced back. Richard had changed. Five years had lined his face, pouching his eyes and cutting deeper grooves into the corners of his mouth. It was not just the absence of a beard and fine clothes that made him unrecognisable. It was the absence of arrogance. Even the aquiline Stonehouse nose seemed to lose its prominence in this exiled, hunted face. But when he drew his sword I recognised him well enough. I recognised the look in his eyes, sharp and cold. This was the face of the man who had tried to kill me. ‘Drop your sword,’ shouted one of the soldiers. The click of the dog lock on the man’s pistol echoed down the alley. Richard kicked savagely at my horse and it leapt forward. There was a blinding, echoing flash and a stink of sulphur. For a moment I could neither see nor hear. The horse plunged. I lost the reins, then grabbed them again. Richard’s fingers dug into me, half-slewing round my jerkin as he scrabbled to cling on. I ducked as the empty pistol was thrown at me and saw another soldier taking aim. We were only just emerging from the alley, a perfect target. The pistol grew very large, then jerked upwards, firing harmlessly in the air as Richard’s sword went through the soldier. 9 (#ulink_04b2181c-895c-5721-900c-ba6a8a8f48ea) Partly because the bolting horse took us in that direction, and partly because, when I had her under control, I wanted a place where few questions would be asked, I rode through the back streets to The Pot, where I used to drink as an apprentice. Neither of us spoke. It was that time in the afternoon when people have just eaten, and are reluctant to get up from the table or the fireside. The stable yard was empty. Not even a dog appeared. He slid from the horse first, holding up his hand for the reins. I did not give them to him, nor look at him. ‘He would have killed you,’ he said. I could scarcely get the words out. ‘Only because you wouldn’t stop!’ He spread out his hands. He looked far more vulnerable than I remembered. ‘You would have given me up.’ ‘Yes. Yes. I would,’ I shouted. There was no sign of a stable boy. While I tethered the horse, Richard drifted aimlessly over to a neglected bowling alley at the corner of the yard. I remembered once losing my boots in a bet there. The Presbyterians, who condemned gambling, had closed it, along with shutting down the theatres. The wooden box with the bowls and jack had been broken into. Richard tossed the jack on to the green. It bumped through the overgrown grass to rest against a stone. He half-knelt and sent a bowl after it, curving it to knock away the stone and rest against the jack. He tossed a bowl to me. Dazed by what had happened, and the incongruity of the green, I flung the bowl down. It bounced crazily, before finishing up in the ditch. Richard pursed his lips and shook his head. In a burst of irritation I seized another bowl, adjusting the bias so it swung in, knocking away his bowl and rolling back nearer to the jack. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not bad.’ He picked up another bowl. ‘I shall never get one like it,’ he said. ‘My sword, I mean. The balance was perfect. It was made in Bologna by Fabris himself –’ Suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened, I knocked the bowl from his hand. ‘You killed him. Cromwell’s soldier. You killed him. I work for Cromwell. Worked. Wanted to –’ The words choked in my throat. All my hopes, all my ambitions, my future had disappeared with that one thrust of his sword. ‘No one would have recognised you. Not in that dark alley. The confusion.’ I became incoherent, one word jamming into another. ‘They know who you are. You left your sword in him. They’ll work out I was with you. You killed him. You –’ He put out a hand in a comforting, reassuring gesture. ‘He was one of the rabble, Tom.’ I grabbed him by the doublet, tearing his collar, and drove him across the yard against the stable door. It was not just the speed of my attack that shocked him. Five years of war, including a period in the infantry, had given me a ferocity in hand-to-hand combat that he could not match. He was half the man without his sword. I was at the height of my strength, while he was in decline. I saw the realisation of this in his face, and the fear in his eyes when he found he could not release my grip as I held him with one hand and reached for my knife. I brought back the knife. ‘I am one of the rabble!’ ‘Behind you,’ Richard said frantically. I almost laughed at him thinking I would fall for that one but, to be sure, kneed him in the groin and glanced round. A stable boy, knuckling his eyes, straw still sticking to his hair from where he had been sleeping, was gazing at us open-mouthed. When I had lived on coins given to me by gentlemen, a penny would buy a good loaf and my silence. Now it was nearer twopence. I held out sixpence. ‘You heard nothing.’ His eyes bulged. He cupped his hand round his ear. ‘What, sir? I bin deaf as a post since birth, sir.’ The coin disappeared into his pocket. Whistling, he took the horse to water. I pushed my dagger back into its scabbard, went to the pump and sluiced water over my face. Slowly, painfully, Richard straightened himself up. His right cheek was streaked with blood. ‘You fight like one of the rabble.’ I pumped water over my handkerchief and walked across the yard towards him. Stone chips from the wall had scoured his cheek. One was still embedded in his lip. In the stable the boy murmured to the horse as he rubbed her down. Richard kept his eye on my dagger as I approached, and jumped as I held out the dripping handkerchief. He hesitated before taking, it, then wiped his face, watching me all the time, wincing as he dislodged the stone fragment from his lip. By some silent agreement, we said nothing more as we walked through the yard. Richard went into the inn first and I followed close at his heels, afraid he might make a bolt for it. The Pot was now patronised by a mixture of market traders, scriveners and pamphleteers who traded gossip over lamb pies at tables shut off from one another by high wooden stalls. It was as gloomy as night. What little light crept through the narrow windows was snuffed out by the smoke from ill-swept chimneys. We found a table cluttered with dirty plates and I bought sack for him and a small beer for myself. He looked disparagingly at the beer. ‘Keeping your wits about you?’ I said nothing. Under the banter, when he ate a piece of fat from one of the dirty plates, I saw again the fear in his eyes when I had rammed him against the stable door. As he flirted with the serving maid, saying that if the lean of her mutton was as good as her fat he must have a leg of it, I scarcely took in how charming he was with women. I was still seeing the shock on his face when I drew the knife and he realised I was stronger than him. I would have been a fool to kill him. I had done something far better. I had killed the nightmare of my late childhood, the man who had hired men to kill me, terrifying me because they came out of the darkness, for no reason, like bad dreams. It was as if I had awoken from a long, disturbed sleep to see the nightmare had a paunch, with skin beginning to slacken into jowls, and that, although he was kissing the serving maid’s hand, she was looking at me. I could not believe I had been moved to tears by his letter. Anne was right. All I had to do was hand him over. What had happened made no difference. I had been colluding with him only to find out what his plans were. To take those plans to Cromwell would put Ireton’s nose out of joint and be a great feather in my cap. The maid served him his leg of mutton. As he tried to grab her again I gave her a smile of sympathy, which she returned with interest. He saw our glance. Again there was that moment of disorientation, of seeing himself in the mirror of other people’s eyes. Recovering, he fell on his mutton, declaring it the best he had ever tasted. And the raisin and gooseberry sauce! He swallowed half of a second glass of sack. ‘Come. Our first meal together and you are not eating?’ I told him my only appetite was to know what he was doing in London. All the false joviality left him. He jumped up, glancing at the nearby stalls. The only diner in sight was asleep, and the maid was throwing scraps from his plate to a dog. ‘Serving my King,’ he said. ‘Cromwell is planning to take the King from the Presbyterians and exile him.’ I laughed. ‘Rubbish. Disobey Parliament? Cromwell would never do that.’ We spoke across one another in an increasingly heated argument, laying bare our feelings about politics in a way we could not do about each other. I said passionately that Cromwell did not want to exile the King. The people wanted both King and Parliament. Richard thought Cromwell a great ogre, but I was as fervent about Cromwell as he was about the King. The arguments got nowhere, petering out into an exhausted silence. Neither of us had talked in any depth before to someone on the opposite side and, in spite of our violently different opinions, they drew us closer in a way I would never have anticipated. Richard painted a rueful, witty picture of what he called the charms of exile. The hospitable French spared nothing, he said, to encourage their guests to leave as soon as possible. They had given their poor relations lodgings at the wrong end of the Chateau de St Germain, damp and draught-ridden, where Queen Henrietta’s court bickered, fought duels to allay boredom, and dreamed of home. The Queen, desperate to return and impatient with Charles’s religious scruples, was arguing for Charles to settle with Parliament, in impassioned letters of which Richard was the entrusted messenger. ‘You have the letters with you?’ ‘I’m not such a fool.’ Nevertheless his hand went to a bulge under his shirt. He had become so animated, a number of people had entered the inn without us being aware of it. Two men passing stared at Richard, making him jumpy, until one joked that if Puritans were drinking there was hope for them all. A tinge of malice went through me as he glanced nervously towards the door every time it opened, just as I had done when I was on the run. He went to the bar to pay the maid, fumbling under his shirt for a bulging purse. I glimpsed not letters, but money, before he concealed it again. A lot of money. Gold unites and angels. It was growing darker, and the maid was lighting candles. ‘What are you doing in London?’ ‘Keep your voice down. I told you. I have messages for the King.’ ‘The King’s in the north. What are you doing here? With all that money?’ ‘I came to see you.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you are my son.’ I would have treated that with the same distrust I had given his letter, had not a flickering candle thrown light fully on his face. His mask of arrogant certainty had slipped. He seemed at a loss; surprised he had said the words. He gave me a cautious look, ready to flee behind some flippancy. Perhaps he expected rejection. Derision. Instead I was struck dumb by the same conflict of feelings that had run through me when I opened his letter. The door opened and the draught plunged us back into shadow. When the silence continued to lengthen he ordered more wine and poured me a glass. I shook my head. ‘You will drink with me, damn you, sir, or I will say no more.’ I took the glass. ‘If you wanted to see me, why didn’t you reply to my letter?’ ‘Because when it came to it, I was afraid it was a trap. Was it?’ ‘No. But I nearly took your letter to Cromwell.’ ‘Nearly? Did you?’ ‘No.’ He moved further down the bar so he was out of the light and I in it. He told me that when he had landed a month ago on the Kentish beach, one of the customs officers he killed had wounded him slightly. The wound had turned infectious. He was too ill to ride but could not entrust the letters to anyone else. The first day he was up he heard at the Exchange that Lord Stonehouse had thrown me out. He celebrated with two bottles of sack. That perfect boy, whom Lord Stonehouse had treated as if he was his own son, had turned out to have feet of clay! But that night the priest came back to haunt him, robbing him of sleep. Priest? He told his story in fits and starts, in no kind of order, staring not at me, but at the candle. With the pools of light, and the high wooden stalls like pews, it was as if we were in church. He crossed himself even while he swore that, in St Germain, it was impossible to get away from the bloody papists. Half drunk one night, he took a wager from Prince Rupert he would go into confession. He knew enough about the damned breed from the Queen, who was brought up one, to fool his way into the box. Box? ‘Box of tricks, I thought. A grille. A voice. I could scarcely keep my face straight! Peccavit. Holy Father, I have sinned. I started to talk about you. Well. I had to say something.’ He shivered. He glanced round one way, then another, at the jumping shadows. ‘Went in there without a problem in the world. Came out in hell.’ He laughed, but his face glistened and he licked his lips compulsively. ‘Much healthier for the soul in England. No bloody priests. After celebrating when my father threw you out, I had a nightmare – bloody priest threatening me with hellfire. That’s when I wrote you that letter.’ ‘I replied. I waited at the Exchange. Twice!’ ‘First time I feared a trap. Had to check it out.’ ‘And the second time?’ He fiddled with his glass. ‘When you turned up at the ’Change I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what the hell I was doing there. Followed you. Curious, I suppose, that’s all. Curious.’ He moved to pick up his glass, but made a face as if the wine had gone sour. For the first time he looked at me directly. ‘I saw your face when you came out of your tailor’s empty-handed. How many times have I been through that when my skinflint of a father cut my allowance!’ He slapped his thigh and laughed until the tears shone. ‘I almost went up to you then.’ He had stood on the same patch of carpet. Suffered the same torrents of abuse, the same unexpected grunts of praise, which led only to dashed hopes and even more savage recrimination. Gradually, it was impossible not to wince, laugh, warm to him. I took several glasses of the wine, while he no longer touched it. ‘When he picks up the seal, do you duck?’ ‘Never!’ He nodded approvingly. ‘Sign of weakness.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘Followed you to your house.’ I stiffened. He shook his head. ‘Very mean. A merchant would do better for a poor relation.’ He was disapproving, but at the same time expressed a measure of satisfaction that I was living in such modest circumstances. ‘No ostler, even. Your son mistook me for the new one.’ I went very still, pushing my glass away and gripping the edge of the table to control myself as he went on. ‘Chatted away. Fellow has spirit. Good on a horse. Got on famously –’ He saw my expression. I kept my voice low only with an effort. ‘Touch my son and I will have you in the Tower, whatever happens to me. I should do so now. I’m a fool to talk to you.’ ‘Not so much a fool as me.’ His tone was as savage as a moment before it had been affable. ‘You’re supposed to be so clever, but you don’t understand, do you?’ ‘I understand when someone is spying on me.’ ‘Spying? The boy is my grandson. Do you think I’d harm him?’ That he could say that with a straight face took my breath away. ‘You tried to kill me.’ ‘That was different.’ ‘How different? ‘I don’t know. Different. I was young. Thought I knew everything. Now I think I know nothing, except that one day the King will have his own again. That’s all that matters. All I hang on to. You’re like that damn priest. Cornering me like a fox.’ His voice took on a new edge of bitterness. ‘All right. I can understand why you think I will harm your son. But I would be a damn fool to do so. I know my father thinks the sun shines out of his little arse.’ He had a knack of saying something that was reassuring and disturbing at the same time. ‘Does Lord Stonehouse know you’re here?’ ‘No! For God’s sake don’t tell him. He risked everything to get me out of the country years ago. I don’t want to get the old sod in any more trouble.’ In spite of their turbulent relationship, and their violently opposed views, Richard seemed to genuinely care for his father. Like the aquiline Stonehouse nose, some of that ambiguity of feeling seemed to have been transmitted to Richard and me. We stared across the table at one another like two fighters who no longer have the energy to aim a blow, but are too apprehensive to turn their backs. Unless he was a very good actor, the effort he had made to write the letter struck me as true. I could not reject him. I could not. Apart from anything else, he had killed the soldier and, whether or not I had been identified, he could implicate me. He picked up his glass and put it down untasted. ‘Can we work together?’ He read the suspicion that leapt into my face and spoke with a passion I had not suspected. He was seeing the King. Knew what was in the Queen’s mind. I knew what was in Cromwell’s. In however small a way we could influence what was put on the table, bring people closer together, just as his letter had brought us together. After all, we were both Stonehouses. I felt the scar that one of his men had left on my cheek. ‘You think I can trust you?’ ‘As much as I trust you,’ he said. ‘Touch?,’ I muttered. My heart suddenly began to pound. It was what was needed – talking, instead of endless fighting. What was there to lose? If he was sincere, I might have a hand, however small, in influencing the negotiations between the King and Cromwell. If he was not, it was a chance to get my hand on those letters. I began talking. Cautiously – not giving away the weaknesses of the New Model, but telling him about those regiments solid for Cromwell, so the King would not have any illusions about the forces against him. I never knew what he might have told me in exchange for, in a patch of light, I glimpsed an agitated face which disappeared into the shadows like the will ’o the wisps on the marsh in my childhood. Jane, my housekeeper? In an alehouse? I believed I had drunk too much, or she was a trick of the light, but then I saw her again, weaving in and out of the chattering, laughing drinkers, who cursed when their drinks were jostled. I called her and she ran towards me. ‘Master. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. It’s Liz, little Liz.’ 10 (#ulink_f19e3667-2fa5-5f40-b130-84f15dabd718) Jane kept saying there was no time, no time. She had a Hackney outside and I scrambled into it with her, leaving Richard at The Pot. We travelled down Fleet Street, and were in Newgate before I pieced together what had happened. Jane told me Anne had called Dr Latchford when Liz’s breathing had become more and more laboured. What little milk Liz took from the wet-nurse, she vomited up. Before the doctor arrived the baby was in such distress that Anne put her on her breast even though she could not suckle. This seemed to revive her, but the doctor said he could do nothing more for her and advised Anne to send for the minister to baptise her. ‘Mr Tooley baptised her?’ ‘No, no. Mr Tooley has gone.’ ‘Gone?’ ‘Lost his living. George broke into a cupboard, found his old surplice, prayer books and pictures, and accused him of practising the old religion.’ A chill ran through me. I was sure I had locked everything back in the cupboard. Then I thought of the old prayer book I had taken out to read. Had I put it back? I could not remember. ‘What is going to happen to her?’ Jane sobbed. ‘No one to baptise her. What will happen to her poor little soul?’ ‘Where is she? Where are we going?’ ‘Anne took her to your old church to find the new minister. I tried to tell her Liz was too ill, but she is half crazy. She got it in her head she must have Liz baptised, and in that church.’ It was almost dark when we got to the church. No candles were lit. I could just pick out the figures of a small congregation in the gloom. I stumbled a few steps before I picked out Anne at the font. She was as still as the stone it was carved from. She neither acknowledged me nor spoke. Her whole being was concentrated on the baby, folded in swaddling clothes at her breast. ‘Is she …?’ Anne did not answer. The only movement came from the rise and fall of her breast. The bundle stirred and the smallest, driest cough echoed round the dank church. Anne kissed her and rocked her gently. All the love she had never given Liz after the disappointment of her not being a boy was lavished on her now. Luke ran to me. I took him by the hand, motioned him to be quiet, and asked Jane what was happening. ‘The minister has been sent for,’ Jane whispered. ‘Mr Tooley?’ ‘The new Presbyterian minister, Samuel Burke.’ Anne shivered, it seemed as much from the name as from the cold seeping into her from the damp stones. Her shawl had slipped from her shoulders and I wrapped it round her, alarmed at her ghost-like pallor. ‘Is there nowhere warmer you can wait?’ I asked. She did not answer me. ‘Anne?’ ‘She will not leave the font,’ Jane said. I begged Anne to let me take her somewhere warm. She turned to me for the first time, as if she was she was staring at a stranger. Luke seemed to appear from nowhere and went to tug at his mother’s skirts. I snatched him up in my arms. He struggled for a moment, protesting, then twisted round to gaze down at his sister with black, darting eyes, deep-set aside the sharp aquiline crescent of the Stonehouse nose. He rammed a thumb in his mouth. He had sensed from the moment he was born he was special, with the undivided love from Anne and the visits and presents from Lord Stonehouse. His manner suggested he could not understand why this insignificant scrap, who had been nothing but a nuisance from the moment she arrived, was getting all the attention. ‘She will go to hell if she is not baptised,’ he said, with a mixture of awe and satisfaction. Anne rounded on him furiously. ‘Go to your place!’ Luke burst into tears at the unexpected ferocity of her attack. I struggled to comfort him but he wriggled and jumped away. My eyes were more accustomed to the dimness now and I saw Mr Black, holding out his arms to Luke. Before Luke reached them, he turned, his voice ringing with injustice. ‘He said so. He said she would go to hell.’ ‘Who did?’ ‘He did.’ Luke pointed to a figure crouched in a pew, before flinging himself into his grandfather’s arms in a fresh burst of sobs. ‘Who?’ I repeated, reluctant to approach the man, who was deep in prayers. ‘Who does tha’ think?’ Sarah’s voice came from the shadows of a pillar, cast by moonlight beginning to filter through the windows. ‘George won’t waste a candle until he’s sure minister will do a service.’ I walked up the aisle where George was on his knees. His mumbled prayers became louder as I approached. ‘God deliver this evil back into the pit from whence it came.’ I touched his shoulder. ‘Light the candles.’ He drew away with a shudder, his face bowed into his clasped hands. ‘Protect us, and protect us even now from this evil he has sired –’ His bones seemed to grind together as I dragged him up from the pew. He was as grey and pallid as the moonlight, except for his eyes. They had a strange, greenish hue, glittering at me with a mixture of fear and hatred. ‘Would you strike me even here?’ he said, shaking his head with a kind of resigned sadness. I had tried. I could never make peace with him. It may have started from jealousy, when Mr Black took me, a strange, unlikely child, as an apprentice, but it had become an obsession, a belief that I was evil. He believed I was evil as much, perhaps more, than he believed in God. Perhaps he was right. I no longer cared. All I cared about was the tiny choked-off cough behind me, the murmur of Anne comforting Liz, the desperate need for God’s blessing before – no, I could not, would not, think of that. I released George. ‘For pity’s sake, George! Where is the minister?’ ‘I have sent for him. I can do no more.’ At the same time I heard an approaching horse, and glimpsed a light in the vestry. A single candle was burning. I lit others as a tall man entered. Drops of rain gleamed on his riding cloak and in his bushy eyebrows as he gazed round with eyes as black and small as currants. He had either lunched late or dined early, for his stomach rumbled and I smelt food on his breath as he was introduced to me by George, with a stream of obsequious apologies for disturbing him, as the Reverend Samuel Burke. I pleaded with him to carry out the ceremony straightaway, but he said with a belch that there were certain formalities that could not be dispensed with, whatever the urgency. He had to be sure who we were, and whether we were married, whether we had been properly instructed. ‘Please! Please. She is very ill! Can you not understand?’ Anne’s voice, ringing round the church, would have moved a stone pillar. Burke moved towards Anne, saying with a small bow to me as he did so, ‘You are Lord Stonehouse’s grandson?’ From his manner, I judged that was the only reason he had allowed himself to be disturbed from his meal. I did not care. ‘Yes. Yes. We wish her to be baptised Elizabeth –’ The Stonehouse name stuck in my throat. I said the name I had always whispered to her. ‘Elizabeth Neave.’ ‘No!’ Anne cried. Burke gave a rich, fruity laugh and declared he had had many a dispute over given names, but never over the surname. ‘All right, all right,’ I said to Anne. ‘What you wish.’ During this, George had taken Burke by the elbow and drawn him to one side. I heard him mention Edwards and the bookshop in Cornhill, whispering, ‘He declared he has no soul.’ Burke’s manner changed. He gave me a long, cold stare. But a burst of coughing from inside the swaddled bundle cut through all arguments. It was a cough of stops and starts, beginning with a wheezing and ending in a strangulated whoop before beginning again. We went through every stop, every start; all her strength seemed to be in that cough; we willed her with every gasping breath to fight on. I put out my little finger and she grasped it with her hand. I felt as if I was fighting for my own life as I must have done when, after just being born, I was left out on a cold wet field to die. I even fancied I saw, in the dim shadows of the church, Kate Beaumann who had put me there and Matthew, who after flinging me in the plague cart, rescued me after I cried and kicked and struggled my way back to life. The cough, the struggling, even broke through the barrier of Burke’s stony formalities. He beckoned Anne forward into the church. She did not understand until he rapped out that he would baptise the child, but not at the font as that was not part of the Presbyterian Directory of Worship. She went forward falteringly, the shawl slipping from her. I followed her, keeping it round her shivering shoulders. She hesitated, her teeth chattering as she spoke. ‘Will you give her the sign of the cross?’ George shook his head sadly. ‘Ah, Mr Burke, there you have it – how Mr Tooley tainted his flock with Romish heresies.’ ‘I will not perform such papist ceremonies,’ Burke said. ‘I feared this. No signing, no font and no godparents.’ ‘No godparents?’ Anne said falteringly. I saw then that Matthew and Kate were not fantasies, but part of the small congregation. ‘Do you wish the child to be baptised or not?’ ‘I want Mr Tooley to baptise her,’ Anne cried. ‘Mr Tooley has been dismissed,’ Burke snapped. My voice shook, however much I tried to keep it level. ‘I am sorry we disturbed you. We no longer need your services. Please go.’ His eyebrows knotted together. ‘It is you who must leave my church.’ I wanted to tell him it was not his church, it belonged to the people, but Liz began to cough again. That stuttering, feeble cough was the end of diplomacy for me. What was the use of diplomacy when people would not listen? I went up to him. ‘Get out.’ He looked as though he might stand his ground, but George said, ‘Have a care, Reverend. He tried to kill me once.’ All the violence that had built up in me when George had the tender care of my soul returned. But it was now hardened and tempered with the discipline of a soldier. ‘The next time I will make a better job of it, George.’ George was in such a hurry to get down the aisle that he knocked over a pile of newly delivered copies of the Presbyterian Directory of Worship. Burke retreated more slowly. ‘Your connections will not protect you from God or Justice, sir, I promise you that.’ A fanatical light shone in those small, currant-like eyes. He had seen the enemy and would not rest until he was destroyed. He stared round the congregation, his voice stern and inflexible. ‘Evidently, it is God’s will to take this child from such a family.’ I went for him then, but a hand stopped me. Matthew was old, but he still had the grip of the shipyard worker he once was. He did not release his grip until the porch door banged. ‘Kill him outside,’ he said. ‘When God’s not looking.’ I pulled away. ‘I must find Mr Tooley.’ ‘Mr Black’s gone for him.’ Mr Tooley was hiding at the pewterer’s in Half Moon Court. Hiding! It had come to this. He entered wearing a surplice, holding the old prayer book. Liz coughed at intervals but more quietly, as if the peace that had entered the church had entered her. More candles were lit, brought in by the candle-maker, Mr Fellowes; not tallow, but his best candles. Mr Tooley stood before the font in the old way. ‘Dearly beloved, I beseech you to call on God … to grant this child that thing which by nature she cannot have; that she may be baptised with water and the Holy Ghost …’ During the service other people crept in. There was Mr Reynolds, the pewterer, Mr Fellowes and his wife, a bookbinder I could not put a name to, and Gibson, the butcher, who was so frail he clutched at each pew as he went along. They were mostly old, and had all been married here by Mr Tooley and had their children baptised by him. By the time Mr Tooley had sprinkled water and made the sign of the cross, christening the baby Elizabeth Neave Stonehouse, she was not coughing or moving, but Anne swore she could feel Liz’s heart beating and Mr Tooley said he felt her breath on his hand. Sarah built up the fire at Half Moon Court, which revived Anne, who was chilled to the bone, but nothing could revive little Liz. When Anne’s eyes jerked closed I took the baby and whispered to her as I used to do, chafing her limbs and kissing her, feeling sure that I saw a finger unclench, or the tiny eyelids tremble, until I felt overcome and Anne took her. I scarcely noticed people passing or heard what they said, but I did see that Kate had brought the simnel cake that she used to make for my birthday. She had made it for a happier baptism and tried to conceal it. But Mr Tooley told her to cut it and divide it with a piece for everyone, for it was a resurrection cake. It was still dark when Matthew stirred us. From one of the parishioners he had found the wood to make a small coffin. Mr Tooley roused the gravediggers early to prepare a grave on the patch of ground that Mr Black had bought for his family. The tears came then and I kept feeling Liz was alive, and would not let them have her until, as the first glimmers of light appeared in the sky, Mr Tooley warned me the Presbyterians would not let him carry out the ceremony if we left it too late. More like grave robbers than mourners, we hurried to the churchyard. A thin, mean wind whipped around us. It was still more night than day and we could scarcely see to pick up soil to throw. It took only a few handfuls to cover the coffin. But, as the earth rattled on the lid, grief was followed by lacerating guilt. I could never forgive myself for my delay in returning home with the syrup. It might have made a difference. I might have found Mr Tooley, might have prevented Anne in her distraught state from taking Liz into that cold, damp church. Might, might, might. Guilt was overcome by anger. If Mr Tooley had never been driven from the church in the first place, Liz might have lived. At least she would have had a more peaceful end and we could have mourned her loss. I had too much anger to mourn. More than Liz was buried that cold morning. For me, peace was buried with her. What peace could there be with intolerant men like George, Sir Lewis Challoner and Burke? As we left the churchyard, Mr Tooley was being taken by the pewterer to a safe house in another parish. Did it never occur to the Presbyterians that the rising discord and unrest among Baptists and other sects came, not so much from them, as from the Presbyterians’ intolerance to them? What if Lord Stonehouse was right and the Presbyterians took control? If they put Charles back on the throne without safeguards or a strong man like Cromwell to keep him in check? Lord Stonehouse’s bleak words rang in my head. ‘I would be executed. So would you. What would happen to Luke, I do not know.’ I stopped at the lych gate, turning to see Luke struggling to keep up as he held on to his mother’s hand. I held out my arms to him and he ran towards me, hurling himself into them. Anne gave me an eloquent look, a mixture of approval and surprise that he had run to me so readily, and I realised that, as much as anything, it was my aloofness that had kept him away. He wriggled, pulling at a lock of my red hair as if he did not believe it was real. He had black hair, like a proper Stonehouse. ‘Is Liz in heaven?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then why did the man say she was going to hell?’ ‘Because he’s a bad man.’ ‘Are you going to kill him?’ I hushed him, pulling him close as he snuggled against me, wrapping my cloak round him against the biting wind. PART TWO (#ulink_415c9167-264b-5067-830b-6b7e3e386013) 11 (#ulink_8484ff46-2175-5504-8aa2-c1615616bd04) Lord Stonehouse was as unpredictable as the weather which, cruelly, two days after the funeral, became not just spring but summer, so warm that the front doors of the house in Queen Street were wide open. I thought I had missed him, for his carriage shot out of the yard as I approached, but he was not in it. The sole occupant was a lady. Her face was veiled so I could see none of her features, except the greenish glitter of her eyes. When Mr Cole showed me in, Lord Stonehouse’s whole stance at the window, a slight smile on his face as he stared in the direction the carriage had taken, suggested to me, improbable as it may seem, that he was in love. Love, however, had not made him notice summer. The windows were shut and the coal fire burning as usual. It was so stifling that sweat trickled down my back as I stood on the patch of carpet. When he eventually turned to acknowledge my existence there was no smile on his face. He gave me the same cold look of distaste as he gave the flask of cordial, which had replaced the usual wine on his desk. ‘Come to your senses?’ I felt I had no senses to come to. They had been buried with Liz. I wanted to mourn, to weep, to pray, but I could not. Once, when I went up to the nursery where her crib was, and rocked it, just for a moment, I saw her turn and it was so real I found myself holding out my finger for her to grasp before she vanished. But I could not weep. Curiously, it was Anne, who had never seemed to care for her while she was alive, who wept and mourned. At least I could meet Lord Stonehouse’s gaze with a look as dead and cold as his. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/peter-ransley/cromwell-s-blessing/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.