A Corruptible Crown

by Gillian Bradshaw

  The order didn’t produce any money, of course: the regiment had no money. Jamie was quite certain that the twenty shillings Rainsborough had given him had come out of the colonel’s own pocket, and he was determined not to spend it on anything but the journey home. No, the order was merely to protect him from possible charges of theft for continuing to eat. He went back to the forge. His fellows commiserated, gave him his bed back, and shared whatever food they were able to extract from the wretched citizens.

  It was not clear what would happen to the regiment. Nobody was so stupid as to suggest that it should serve under Sir Henry Cholmley, but without Rainsborough there would be no taking over the siege of Pontefract in Cholmley’s place. Everyone expected that soon they would be posted elsewhere. Cromwell’s forces at Knottingley made their own presence in the north redundant anyway. In the meantime they idled about Doncaster, feeding off the citizens, fighting with the garrison, and endlessly arguing about the circumstances of the murder.

  There was, as promised, an investigation. It went quickly at first. The sentinel on the bridge had been pistolled; the servants at the inn, who had witnessed some of the events, confirmed that what had happened was a kidnapping-gone-wrong; the officer in charge of Rainsborough’s own few sentries was found to have spent the night in a whorehouse – he fled before he could be questioned. After the funeral cortege left, however, the investigation stalled. No progress could be made without questioning Cholmley’s people, but this was something Cholmley refused to permit. He offered to take charge of the investigation instead, and was indignant when Rainsborough’s men angrily rejected the suggestion. The impasse was broken, however, after the letters sent post-haste to London resulted in Parliament voting to set Lieutenant-General Cromwell in charge.

  Rainsborough’s men were furious. Nobody had forgotten that the murderers had claimed to be bringing a message from Cromwell, and as far as the regiment was concerned he was one of the prime suspects. They were still discussing what to do when Cromwell descended on Doncaster like a hailstorm. He arrested Captain Rokeby, turned Rokeby’s staff out of the town’s military headquarters, stood down the garrison and replaced it with his own men, and ordered Rainsborough’s officers to present themselves at once, together with all the evidence they’d assembled.

  That took up the first day. The following morning, Cromwell sent for Jamie.

  Jamie followed the messenger to the fine old mansion that had, until two days before, been the headquarters of Captain Rokeby. His escort exchanged a few words with the sentries, then led him into the stone-flagged hall. There were doors to each side; a murmur of voices came from behind the door on the right, and the escort knocked and went in, leaving Jamie to wait.

  Jamie leaned wearily against the wall, cradling his wounded arm.

  It was nearly two weeks now since he’d received the injury, but the cut wasn’t healing. It was inflamed and leaked pus; it kept him awake at night, and he had little appetite. He had never recovered either the weight or the strength he’d had before the bout of flux, and his exhausted body lacked the resources to heal. He ached to get this miserable business over with so he could go home.

  At last the messenger who’d fetched him came back, nodded, and held open the door.

  The room beyond was a dining room or hall. A dozen officers were sitting around a heavy oak table; most of them were unknown to Jamie, though he recognized the two that were Rainsborough’s. He also recognized the man at the head of the table, though they had never spoken. Lieutenant-General Cromwell was a solid jovial man, with a blunt red-nosed face that might have belonged to a country squire, except for the intensity of those clear grey eyes. A sheathed sword lay on the table in front of him.

  Captain Rokeby was sitting stiffly on a chair at the far end of the room – not at the table with the others, but against the wall. He looked altogether wretched. It was his sword in front of Cromwell, Jamie realized. The court martial was already under way.

  ‘Mr Hudson,’ said Cromwell briskly. ‘We must ask you some questions under oath.’ He picked up a Bible, which lay next to the sword. ‘Pray place your hand on this and swear that you will tell the truth as you hope for the mercy of Almighty God.’

  Jamie stepped forward and stretched out his left hand. Cromwell drew back the book with a frown, then offered it again, to Jamie’s right.

  ‘My arm was grazed by a pistol shot, sir,’ Jamie said hoarsely, but he eased his bad arm forward and gingerly set his mutilated hand on the cover of the Bible. The iron brace was in his pocket: there seemed no point in wearing it when he couldn’t use the arm.

  Cromwell looked at the missing fingers, then up at Jamie’s face. ‘Misfire?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye,’ Jamie agreed. ‘At Naseby.’ The magic name brought the usual flicker of appreciation around the court. He pressed his palm against the leather and swore to tell the truth.

  He did not really suspect Cromwell of being an accessory to the murder, though he thought it possible. The cavaliers at Pontefract were known to be ingenious, enterprising men: a daring strike into an enemy stronghold was exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to them. He did suspect that Cholmley had, at the very least, known that an attack was underway and declined to interfere with it – but even if that suspicion were capable of being substantiated, doing so wasn’t within his power. The one thing he owed God and this court was to tell the truth of what he himself had seen and done.

  He began by recounting his meeting with Barker on Doncaster Bridge and what he knew of Barker’s response to it, speaking simply and plainly. One of Cromwell’s officers, who appeared to be acting as Rokeby’s advocate, tried to catch him out: Why had Barker accused him, if they hadn’t even spoken? Ah, so there was bad blood between them! Come, if Barker really had assailed his wife, he must have longed to revenge himself! What gentleman would meet his wife’s attacker face to face and turn the other cheek?

  Jamie shook his head. ‘He rode off in haste. I threw my . . . I threw a piece of iron after him, and I think it struck him, but it did him no hurt.’

  ‘So you did attack him!’ cried the advocate triumphantly.

  Jamie shook his head. ‘Only in throwing at his back what I chanced to have in my pocket, and that was no weapon, nor capable of doing him any harm. Those in his way were in more danger. It’s a mercy that none of them were hurt, for he rode down a busy street at full gallop.’

  ‘But what was it you threw?’ demanded the advocate.

  Jamie fished the brace out of his pocket. ‘That.’

  The advocate regarded it in bewilderment, and Jamie continued evenly, ‘I use it, sir, in place of the fingers I lost at Naseby. It’s true that Lieutenant Barker could not have known what it was, but neither could he have known that it was thrown by me. As I said, he galloped off down a busy street. Men were cursing him right and left, and likely others threw things, too. I am on oath, sir, and I tell you that I did not attack him. I might have done, had he not fled, and certainly he feared that I would – but what he told Captain Rokeby was false. I did not attack him, nor had I any plan to follow after him or lie in wait to do him harm. I had given my word to Colonel Rainsborough and to my wife that I would neither seek him out nor challenge him, and that word I’ve kept.’

  ‘Your wife asked this?’ inquired the advocate, raising his eyebrows and somehow managing to imply both that he thought it unlikely any such request had been made, but that if it had, no proper man would have complied with it.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Jamie stolidly. ‘She would not have me put myself into danger on her behalf when she had taken no harm – and she believes vengeance belongs to God.’

  ‘A sensible and godly woman,’ Cromwell said approvingly.

  ‘So you returned peaceably to your smithy?’ coaxed another of the officers, who seemed to be the prosecutor.

  ‘Aye. I was having a bite to eat and reading my wife’s letters when they came to arrest me.’ Jamie glanced at Rokeby, resentment flaring in him for the f
irst time that morning. ‘My wife’s letters were scattered, and many are lost.’

  The prosecutor’s lips quivered. ‘They also shot you, I believe.’

  Jamie nodded and gave a bald account of how he had been shot; at the prosecutor’s request he reluctantly took off his coat and rolled up his sleeve to show the weeping wound. Cromwell looked at it, then at Rokeby.

  ‘This is Lieutenant Perry’s fault!’ Rokeby burst out. ‘I only ordered him to arrest the fellow!’

  Jamie glanced at the captain again, then turned his gaze soberly to Cromwell. ‘The captain said this before, to Colonel Rainsborough. The colonel said he would not hear such baseness, to blame the lieutenant the instant it was clear that the order was wrong.’

  A ripple went through the room.

  ‘I was abused by this man Barker!’ Rokeby protested. ‘He was a dispatch rider, he said he’d been attacked, that he feared for his life! I was bound to believe him!’

  ‘Without first making any inquiry whatsoever?’ asked the prosecutor. ‘You must know that by rights you should have sent to Colonel Rainsborough, and asked him to act.’

  ‘’Twere unjust to blame me because Colonel Cholmley made such an enemy of Colonel Rainsborough that I durst not go to him!’

  ‘You durst not even inquire?’ asked Cromwell mildly.

  ‘I feared Rainsborough’s malice!’ Rokeby said hotly. ‘I was bound to protect the dispatches!’

  ‘Was there any matter in these dispatches that you feared to let Colonel Rainsborough see?’ the general persisted, his voice gentle.

  There was an abrupt silence, the whole court martial realizing in the same instant why it was being held in the middle of a murder investigation. Rokeby went pale and shook his head. ‘It . . . I . . . ’twas but the principle of the thing!’

  ‘What was in the dispatches, then?’ coaxed Cromwell.

  ‘Merely . . . merely reports on our troops.’

  ‘And on Colonel Rainsborough’s?’

  ‘Aye,’ Rokeby admitted.

  ‘Such as information as to where his companies were quartered, and how his sentries were disposed?’

  ‘Sir!’ gasped Rokeby. ‘It was no such thing as you imagine! Aye, I informed my colonel as to his rival’s doing, but . . .’

  ‘Including the information I spoke of?’

  ‘Aye. Aye, but such is commonplace! You yourself must have the like!’

  ‘Then why was protecting these dispatches a matter of such importance that you must needs order out half a dozen men armed with swords and pistols?’

  Rokeby stammered, groaned, and at last cried, ‘It was naught to do with the dispatches! One of Rainsborough’s had attacked one of ours! Or, or, so I believed!’

  ‘Wrongly,’ the prosecutor put in quickly.

  ‘Sir,’ said the advocate, cautiously reproaching Cromwell, ‘this strays from the case.’

  Cromwell sat back in his chair and looked benign.

  ‘Mr Hudson,’ the advocate went on, ‘by your own account, you were wounded more by accident than design.’

  Jamie sighed. ‘Sir, I had believed that the charge against Captain Rokeby was not that he gave orders that led to this injury, but that he had no right to order my arrest at all.’

  ‘But in the unhappy circumstances . . .’ began the advocate.

  ‘The circumstances were made no happier by Captain Rokeby’s folly!’ snapped the prosecutor. ‘Mr Hudson, what did Colonel Rainsborough do when he learned what had passed?’

  ‘He was angry and indignant,’ said Jamie. ‘He came running to the surgeon’s while my wound was being dressed, to inform himself fully as to what had happened. When the captain arrived, shortly after, he rebuked him, telling him he’d flouted both civil and military law, and that he would see him cashiered for it.’

  Cromwell stirred and leaned forward again. ‘Is that so, Captain?’

  Rokeby shrank under that calm grey gaze and muttered, ‘Yes. Sir.’

  ‘So you had strong motive to wish the colonel out of the way,’ Cromwell said quietly.

  Rokeby stared, aghast. The advocate bit his lip, then again complained that this strayed beyond the case.

  There were a few more questions after that, but Cromwell sat through them in silence, toying with his pen. When Jamie’s account was finished, the general said pleasantly, ‘Thank you, Mr Hudson. That will be all for now, but I will want another word with you later. Mr Piltry, see that this man is taken to Dr White to have that wound dressed, and give him something to eat.’

  Jamie’s escort saluted and led him out.

  Dr White was Cromwell’s own surgeon. He cleaned the pistol graze – an excruciating process – then anointed it with a strong-scented balsam and covered it with a clean bandage. When he was finished, a servant appeared and led Jamie off to the kitchens, where he was given the best meal he’d had in months. He was cleaning the plate when Piltry, the escort, returned and beckoned him.

  The hall was now empty except for Cromwell, who sat alone at the heavy oak table, going over some papers. He looked up when Jamie was shown in. ‘Ah. Thank you, Mr Piltry,’ he said, then dismissed the escort with a wave. He linked his hands together and regarded Jamie, who stared back in silence.

  ‘Captain Rokeby will be publicly cashiered,’ Cromwell said, ‘though – to my great sorrow – Colonel Rainsborough will never see it. I trust, though, that his brave spirit is beyond all such petty concerns, and now rejoices in eternal bliss.’

  Jamie said nothing. He wondered what this was about. Cromwell surely knew that Rainsborough’s men suspected him of involvement in their colonel’s murder.

  ‘The colonel discharged you after your arrest,’ the general continued, after a moment. ‘Why did he so?’

  ‘He said that I had become odious to Cholmley’s faction,’ said Jamie, ‘besides that I’d be unable to work for a time. He also knew that I was very eager for my discharge. I had applied to him after Colchester, but he refused me.’ He met those clear eyes and added deliberately, ‘I was obliged to enlist for this second war against my wishes. I was taken up at Ware, though I was a civilian, and Commissary-General Ireton gave me the choice between re-enlisting and prison.’

  Cromwell lifted a finger in silent objection. ‘We have made peace with your faction since Ware. Colonel Rainsborough agreed with me on the necessity of making common cause against common enemies.’ He waited, looking at Jamie expectantly. Jamie, however, had no intention of getting into an argument with a general, and did not reply. Cromwell snorted, then went on briskly, ‘Why should Colonel Rainsborough care whether you were odious to Colonel Cholmley’s faction?’

  ‘I think he meant to use Rokeby’s folly as a lever to shift Cholmley,’ Jamie replied honestly, ‘and he was bound to employ Cholmley’s people after. He warned me against pursuing Lieutenant Barker; he said it would tend to justify Rokeby’s actions.’

  Cromwell let out a breath, then nodded. ‘So it would.’ He gazed at Jamie thoughtfully. ‘I am aware of your dealings with Lieutenant Barker; my son-in-law wrote me of the matter, since we’d both reckoned Barker trustworthy and employed him frequently. To be candid with you, I was intrigued to encounter the man who’d occasioned his disgrace.’

  Jamie set his teeth. ‘Lieutenant Barker,’ he said softly, ‘deserved worse than dismissal.’

  ‘It cannot be proven, Mr Hudson,’ replied the general. ‘No more than it can be proven that Sir Henry Cholmley was accessory to your colonel’s murder, with the connivance of this sorry wretch Rokeby. The law of this land presumes innocence where proof of guilt is lacking, and for my part I will never seek to overturn that presumption. It seems to me that your wife is wise, to rely instead upon the certain vengeance of Almighty God.’

  There was a pause. Jamie was startled by the reference to Cholmley. Did Cromwell really think him an accessory – or was he trying to shift the blame?

  ‘Lieutenant Barker,’ Cromwell resumed, ‘was certainly a man unworthy of his trust; and yet I shou
ld be sorry to see him – or you – come to grief because of the ill-will betwixt you. What do you mean to do, now you are discharged, and the reasons for the injunction to let Barker be no longer hold?’

  ‘I mean to go home to my wife,’ Jamie replied without hesitation. ‘I would have followed the colonel’s coffin to London, but I was told I must wait on Captain Rokeby’s trial. I want no more of war; and as for Lieutenant Barker, I will be best pleased if I never see him more. Am I free to go now, sir? Or must I wait upon your investigation?’

  Cromwell smiled. ‘The record of the court martial will suffice the investigation for your part in all this, Mr Hudson. You are free to go, and I pray for God’s blessings upon you and your godly wife.’

  Jamie walked back to the smithy feeling light-headed, incredulously debating whether he should set out southward in the morning, or give his arm a couple more days to heal. The sensible course was to wait. Sleeping in barns and haystacks, as he’d have to do, wouldn’t be good for an infected cut – but he didn’t know whether he could bear any more delay. He wanted the hundred and fifty miles between London and Doncaster to become a single step, so that he could vault it and be there, taking Lucy in his arms and telling her, ‘I’m home, I’m home and never never never will I go to war again!’

  Sam was at the forge, mending a cooking pot. He set down his hammer and looked at Jamie in surprised question.

  ‘I’m free to go home!’ Jamie told him rapturously.

  With the prospect of another siege receding, Sam was resigned to losing his partner. He smiled broadly, shook Jamie’s hand, asked about the court martial and Cromwell, and frowned over the general’s hint on Cholmley.

  ‘A letter came for you,’ when they’d exhausted the subject and he was about to return to his work. ‘It’s there, on the big anvil.’

  Jamie seized it greedily: it was the first letter he’d received since they marched north. He saw at once that it was from Rob, and he opened it expecting questions or condolences on Rainsborough’s death.