‘I have drawn a line under Lord Manchester’s Eastern Association,’ Whittier said. ‘But it was truly not Manchester so much. Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides Brigade saved the battle. Cromwell himself was wounded but he led his troops back in. Some credit will accrue to Lord Leven. He was the lead commander since his Covenanter Brigade of Horse, about a thousand strong, was the largest. Some of them broke and ran when the fighting got hot. But he was able to rally the remnants and, with Lord Maitland’s regiment, to assist Cromwell.’
‘I am not surprised at the Ironsides Brigade,’ Ben said. ‘I served under Cromwell and I can testify that his men are well-trained. They would never retreat unless ordered to do so, and that order would be slow in coming. General Cromwell is always right there in the thick of it, giving blow for blow.’
‘From what I have heard,’ Whittier said, ‘he is probably the only man as committed to the cause of defeating the King’s forces as John Pym was. Now that he is the hero of Marston Moor, his voice in Parliament will be enhanced. Henry Vane, the heir apparent, is no John Pym. He will be looking for a strong voice to fill that void.’
Ben scrunched up his face, that same face Caroline remembered seeing when he was in deep study, often just before arguing with his father. ‘That seems like a lot of power for one man to have, political and military; for a man as disciplined as passionate as Cromwell,’ he said.
‘It is. That is why we will only print the facts of the battle and not let Cromwell’s role obscure that of the Scots. All of London doesn’t need to be hailing him a hero. Not yet, anyway.’ Then he stood up and, wiping his hands together as if dismissing the subject said, ‘But we are boring Caroline.’
‘I assure you, Lord Whittier, I am not in the least bored. I frequently have contact with the Covenanters whenever they are in the city. Young lads mostly. Some of them conscripted by clan leaders. I had heard a little something about the big battle. They have been straggling in all week. Fewer than before. Were many of them killed?’
‘Hard to say how many were killed in the fighting. Leven’s troops were decimated at his own command.’
‘Decimated?’ Caroline said.
‘An old military punishment. From the time of the Romans. Whenever a battle was lost, one out of every ten soldiers was killed by the legion commander.’
‘You don’t mean … but the battle wasn’t lost.’
‘When the fighting heated up, some of the Covenanters fled.’
‘And Lord Leven—’
James nodded, ‘Just lined them up and counted them off. No trial. No defense.’
‘Not killed in the battle’ had been the answer to her question about young McDuff. She thought for a moment she was going to be sick. The cheery, always joking boy, scarcely old enough to wield a pike. Decimated. A fancy word for murdered. All that youth and energy – he was about Ben’s age; all that exuberance, that happy smile, just snuffed out, and to what purpose? Did he have a wife at home? A mother? Maybe even a child of his own who would never know a father?’
‘What of the other nine?’ she asked, barely able to force out the words.
‘Flogged. Shamed. Given hard duty, jobs that nobody else wanted to do.’
‘Like latrine duty.’ She wasn’t even sure she had said it out loud. But from his expression she knew she had. ‘Print that in your broadsheet, Lord Whittier, what Lord Leven did. See what the wives and mothers who read your paper will think of such military justice.’
‘I understand, Caroline, I do. I agree there should have been a court martial before pronouncing execution. But there is no mercy in war and only crude justice.’
From outside came the sound of querulous voices.
‘That will be our boys,’ Whittier said, looking relieved to change the subject. ‘I picked up a fish pie from a vendor outside Parliament House. Figured Ben would be too busy to think about supper. Got it cheap. She was just closing up shop.’
The door opened and Ralphie and Little John came in still quarreling. ‘He didn’t even try to sell all his papers.’
‘Did too.’
‘You should have never taught him his alphabet, Ben. He just leans against the wall trying to pick out the letters and looking for his name.’
‘I counted seven in the first paragraph. I saw my name twice,’ the youngest boy said.
‘I had to sell his papers and mine too.’ Ralphie scowled. ‘He’s a sluggard.’
‘Well then. I guess if you have to do all the work, maybe tomorrow, he’ll just stay behind with me,’ Ben said. ‘Help me with the chores and stuff.’
Ralphie’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I did not say he shouldn’t go. He’s my partner. I can’t sell the papers by meself.’
‘Then in that case, I guess you’ll just have to either teach your partner how to sell better – or settle for selling alone.’
Ralphie looked down at his feet, scuffled them back and forth then said grudgingly, ‘He does bring in some customers. The women like him. I do all the work and then he collects the money.’
Little John grinned and turned his pockets inside out. A shower of coins fell to the floor.
Ralphie shook his head in disgust. ‘Sometimes they even give him an extra ha’penny. But I suppose he deserves something for all them hugs and cheek-pinching.’ Ralphie shuddered.
Caroline marveled at how cleverly Ben managed the boys, turning prosecutor into defender.
‘Stop your quarreling and mind your manners. We have a visitor,’ James said. ‘Say hello to Mistress Caroline, Ben’s stepmother. I expect you’ll be seeing more of her.’
‘Stepmom! She’s too young to be his …’ But he broke off at a raised eyebrow from James.
‘Are you sleeping at home again tonight, Ralphie?’ James asked. Then he turned to Caroline to explain, ‘Sometimes Ralphie’s father has too much to drink and gets a little unfriendly. But lately, it seems he’s found the Lord and the Lord is helping him stay sober.’
Caroline was surprised to hear that godly language as if it was Whittier’s everyday parlance, but she supposed he was quoting the boy for the sake of the boy.
Ralphie’s eyes grew wide as he explained, ‘The preacher says the Lord has wrought a mighty miracle. Seven nights in a row. Me dad’s even found work helping build the new meeting house. Me mum is singing again.’
‘That is wonderful, Ralphie,’ Caroline said, wanting to hug him, but he’d already made plain what he thought of hugs and cheek-pinching.
Ben cut a slice of the pie for Ralphie. ‘You need to head out before it gets too dark. Your mum will be worried. Eat this on your way. We’ll be expecting you bright and early tomorrow to help with the folding.’
‘Looks better than the devil’s dried beef,’ Ralphie said, and bit into it with a grin.
‘I should be going too,’ Caroline said. ‘I just stopped by to reassure myself that Ben is doing well. Sometimes I can hardly believe he is real,’ she said, thinking of McDuff.
‘He is very real, Caroline. And doing well, you can rest assured. Please don’t leave yet. Ben will be worried if you go back alone after dark. Stay. Share our pie. Ralphie seemed to like it.’
‘If she doesn’t, there’s always dried beef, eh, Johnnie?’ Ben said with a wink.
Suddenly reluctant to leave, she said, ‘I will stay on one condition. That you allow me to come back on Sunday afternoon and help expedite your new project – Ben has said speed is important – and, since I have already had my supper, Johnnie can have my portion.’
The boy grinned from ear to ear, his thoughts written all over his face. This was so much better than hugs and a cheek-pinching.
It had been a good two weeks for James Whittier. Caroline was as good as her word. She not only came back the following Sunday, but the next Sunday after that. With the four of them, Patience and Ben folding (they always worked as a team), Caroline sewing and James binding the bundles for shipping, The Bloody Tenent of Persecution was now for sale in St Paul’s Ya
rd and far beyond; as far away as the Netherlands and of course the New England colonies. He agreed with the substance of it and hoped it would be endlessly copied, until it washed up on every shore like the old Tyndale Bibles his grandmother had told him about when he was a boy. He wished he could be there to see the satisfaction on Roger’s face when he uncrated it.
There was a lot about the preacher and author he admired. James had never met anyone as confident in his beliefs – or as persistent in defending them. Maybe that was why he left England. To make a place where he would not be required to defend them, at least at the end of a gun. With his banishment from Massachusetts, things had not turned out exactly as he had hoped. But the man was nothing if not persistent – and optimistic. He had invited James to go back with him. ‘When you no longer feel free here to live by your conscience,’ he’d said. James was already feeling it, though now he had more to keep him here than ever.
He had been scratching about in his mind for days to find an excuse to keep seeing Caroline now that their big project was finished. He couldn’t confess that he was totally, completely besotted with her. That would scare her away. She was not like the women he had known; women whose affections were given on a whim or traded for favors. He was sure, after his clumsy blunder in the park, she would have avoided him forever, had it not been for wanting to keep her connection with Ben. Later, when Ben mentioned that her hours had been cut back at the guildhall kitchen because so many of the soldiers had gone to besiege Newcastle, the importance of that bit of war information to his pursuit of Caroline did not really hit him. He was reading his competitor’s Thursdays weekly Intelligencer, the London edition of Mercurius Civicus – since the Licensing Act it had become Parliament’s propaganda tool and a most unlikely source of inspiration – when he got the germ of a strategy.
The header promised: Truth Impartially Related from Hence to the Whole Kingdom to Prevent Misinformation. The irony of that made him laugh out loud. But reading the article about the siege of Newcastle, he remembered how Caroline talked about the young Scottish soldiers and how few came to the guildhall now. He should have thought then of the opportunity that circumstance presented, but he had been preoccupied with thinking about the implications of the paper’s capitulation to parliamentary pressure.
The pandering slant of the article disgusted him. It severely criticized the Scots for being slow in capturing the northern town, mentioning too how some Covenanters had deserted at the battle at Marston Moor. Omitting the part played by the Scots in the victory at Marston Moor, their coming to Cromwell’s aid, with no mention of the missing Essex or Manchester in the crucial siege, was not ‘Truth Impartially Related.’ It was clear to James that Parliament was using its mouthpiece oracle to turn sentiment against the Scots in justification of their neglect in paying them under the terms of the covenant. But fear-mongering or not, if Lord Leven’s extraordinary discipline could not inspire his soldiers to take the impregnable fortress, it would indeed be a brutal winter. James had been to Newcastle. Its medieval walls were ten feet thick and surrounded by a ditch bigger than the one around London. No way to penetrate it with limited artillery. Lord Leven was charged with mining the walls. James pitied the poor souls who had to set those mines so that the walls would crumble, and a black river of coal could flow south.
And then it hit him. Of course. While the Scots were engaged with Newcastle, and most of London’s Trained Bands were guarding the ever-widening circle around London, troops boarded and fed in relatively secure London would be few. That meant Caroline’s income would suffer. Being patient, when he wanted something as he wanted her, was not his long suit, but he was determined to practice it. Everything about her appealed to him. Not just her body or her eyes or the shape of her mouth – though he took pleasure in just watching the way she tilted her head when she laughed, or walked across the room, or swept her hair away from her face – but he thought that if he were blind and deaf, he would know when she entered the room. Of all the women he had known, she was the one who he imagined might sustain his interest for a lifetime.
His plan was simple. He would offer her work in the print shop to supplement her lost wages. Or, better yet, get Ben to offer it to her on his behalf. And when she accepted the offer, as surely she would, if only to be nearer Ben, James would be patient. He would bind her to him gradually, make her feel safe, earn her respect and friendship. But there were a couple of obstacles to the happy outcome he envisioned: one was her fierce loyalty to her dead husband, and the other was the small matter of their initial meeting of which, thank God, she seemed to have no memory. The former he was confident would fade with time, provided there was time. And the other? He would consider later how best to overcome that one. But one thing was sure. He would have to tell her. There should be no secrets between them.
THE POWER OF WORDS
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
From Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr John Milton, for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England, 1644
The back door of the shop was open to the light and to draw the breeze through, but so intent was she on her task that Caroline did not hear the clattering of horses and cartwheels against the cobblestone street outside, nor did she hear the printer’s footfalls when Lord Whittier returned. She looked up to see him peering over her shoulder.
‘You are really very fast at this. Only three weeks and you are already setting type.’ He looked approvingly at the neat rows. ‘Faster than Ben. He was right to suggest hiring you.’
‘Ben is a good teacher,’ she said, thinking that after all she had two hands, so she should be twice as fast. ‘I wanted to show you that I can do something besides file the letter blocks and sweep. Does this mean I am a printer’s devil now?’
‘Oh no. You are much too …’ he paused as if searching for the word, ‘kind to be anybody’s devil. I was going to say beautiful, but I thought you might take offense and think me too forward. Come to think of it,’ he said with a grin, ‘I’ve known some beautiful women who surely were apprenticed to the devil.’
I’ll wager you have, she thought. Returning to her task, she said, ‘How can any woman be offended at such a compliment? I don’t think anyone has ever called me beautiful before.’
That was true, though she’d never really thought about it. Mary Powell set the standard for beauty at Forest Hill.
‘Then blindness must be endemic where you come from.’
Endemic – not a word the tutor at Forest Hill had ever included on their lists to be memorized, but from the context it must mean common, she thought. Feeling her face redden, she finished the last word of type in the last row. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s broadsheet. Please proof it before you ink it. Is proof the right word?’
He smiled. ‘Exactly the right word.’
Feeling suddenly very aware that she was alone with him for the first time since coming to work at the shop, she said, ‘Ben has gone to take Ralphie and Johnnie the afternoon edition’ – another new word she had added to her list – ‘and I am going to the market before it closes. The boys said they were tired of dried meat strips. I am hoping for something fresh.’
Taking her bonnet down from the hook by the door and replacing it with her apron, she said, ‘I shan’t be long.’
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Let me get you some money.’
‘I have money. Ben paid me last Friday. And I shall eat the food as well.’
‘I believe our terms were that the print shop would replace your lost earnings.’
‘Which you have done.’
‘Did not the guildhall provide the food you cooked?’
‘Well, yes but—’
‘And did you not also eat from what they provided?’
She nodded.
‘Well, then.’ He reached inside his tunic and withdrew a sovereign.
‘But this is too much.’
‘If y
ou have some left, hold it for next time. If it is not enough, tell Ben, and he will make up the difference. We have a little puddle for everyday expenses like food.’
‘You are more than generous, my lord.’
He frowned, ‘Thank you, my lady.’
She corrected herself, ‘You are more than generous, James.’
‘Thank you, Caroline. And you are more than beautiful. Now off with you. I am going to proof this, and Ben can print it when he returns.’
She went out into the late August sunshine feeling more light-hearted than she had in longer than she could remember. She had lain awake at night trying to figure out how to replace her lost income. Two days at the guildhall kitchen was not enough. Her little hoard would be gone in no time. It seemed that once again James Whittier had come to her rescue. And though she hated to be beholden to anyone as she was to him, this was a new day and, as the Psalmist said, she would be ‘glad in it.’
In the green market, Caroline found parsnips, spinach and a cabbage to add to Ben’s pottage pot and cucumbers, onions, some lightly wilted sorrel leaves with a bottle of apple vinegar to brighten them. She decided to pass on a white-fleshed melon in favor of a jar of honeycomb, remembering how the children at Forest Hill had loved sucking the sweet nectar and chewing the wax. With a loaf of fresh rye, she could crumble the stale wheat loaf-heel into Ben’s pottage pot and add some fresh sage and precious pepper for seasoning.
Despite her careful shopping, she was a little shocked at how much she spent – only three crowns left, and she had not even bought a small bird for the pot. She went to three vendors before she finally complained that what used to cost pennies now cost shillings.
‘Aye, mistress, ’tis the war. Most of what we sell comes from outside the Lines of Communication. Most kitchen gardens don’t have enough to sell after Parliament takes its bite to feed the soldiers. Trust me. The overage is not going into my pocket. I can’t sell what I can’t get.’
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