My men by now were eager for more action, partly because they had been too long with little real work to do, and partly because Oxford offered too many opportunities for the rapid spending of money. Rupert was on the Welsh border but early in May he returned to Oxford, just in the nick of time. Since my quarrel with Annette I had found my old trouble returned in an exacerbated form. I commanded the Parkin brothers to attend on me constantly for I feared what my lust might bring me to, and on several occasions they dragged me struggling from the presence of women of good repute who unknown to themselves had sounded my trumpets.
Lauder laughed loud and long when he chanced to witness one of these scenes. I had been strolling down Broad Street when the wife of the Master of Trinity College happened to come walking by me. I leapt forward, one hand outstretched, the other plucking at my breeches. Dextrously Nob Parkin tapped my heel and I ploughed into the ground at her feet. Leaving his two brothers to drag me away, he doffed his cap to the pizzled woman and said, ‘Forgive my master, mistress, for he has suffered most grievously in these wars. Sometimes in a lovely face he fancies he sees the General Cromwell and the lovelier the face, the stronger the fancy.’
Flattered, the woman offered her condolences and went her ways, while Lauder who had been standing near almost laughed himself into the grave and gave Nob Parkin a small silver coin which the great oaf put in his mouth and swallowed, this being a common test of such coins, for true metal after being passed and washed shines bright and even, while base and mixed metals are patchy and dull.
When the women were of no importance, however, and the places dark or ill-frequented, the Parkins offered no restraint, and indeed if there were wenches enough to go round they joined me in my toil, despite my warning that ultimately they would suffer the pangs of hell, for while I did it for necessity, they did it for pleasure. Finally their vigilance failed. I had been in a brawl, or rather more than a brawl for some ruffians lay in wait for me as I walked down the narrow passage they call Turl Street. One fired a ball at my chest, the force of which knocked the breath from me though it did not pierce the skin. Instantly the other two ran at me with clubs and began beating me around the head and even as I fell to the ground the thought came to me that these fellows – or he who sent them – knew their herb-lore.
At that moment Nob and his brothers came running up, whereupon my attackers broke off and fled, save one who stumbled and on rising received Nob’s fist on the back of his skull so that he fell to the ground once more. When they came to take him up, they found he was dead.
I myself was badly bruised and somewhat dazed. Quickly they took me to a chirurgeon’s house, then thinking no harm left me to go tell Lauder and Jem what had befallen. When they returned it was to find me arrested. The chirurgeon’s wife had come to me to bathe my head, and with her husband only a few feet away in his dispensary mixing a posset for my aching brains, I had attempted to ravish her.
My defence that I had been disturbed in my wits by the beating I had received might have been acceptable had not Digby taken an interest in the case and put forward witnesses to my previous offences. These I dismissed as purveyors of malicious gossip, admitting only (what was not easily denied) that I had twice been convicted of the offence during my service under Essex.
‘But then also I was the victim of false testament,’ I averred. ‘These Roundheads like not foreigners and especially not those of the Catholic faith. Nonetheless, that godly though misguided peer, Lord Essex, who is a great hater of lechery, gave me my pardon, acknowledging my innocence.’
This citing of that old Puritan, who still was known for his honesty if not his intellect, might well have brought me out of my scrape scot-free, had not Digby pursued his malevolence towards me. These gay, pleasant fellows can bear any amount of other people’s misfortunes but cannot abide a joke against themselves.
Fortunately Rupert arrived as the court were considering their verdict and as ’twas one of those times when his breath was blowing stronger than Digby’s in the King’s sails, I was given my release. Two days later I rode with my troop behind Rupert’s banner as the King’s forces marched out of Oxford in search of the battle that would end the war.
The night before, I had visited Annette and met with her brother-in-law, the fiery Olwyn Matthias. He drew his sword on me and lunged at my gut but his rage made him unsteady and I parried the blow with my gauntlet, drew my own weapon and would have slit his throat had not Annette appeared at that moment and cried, ‘Stay!’
I obeyed and with much pleasure heard her scold the stupid Welshman till he left the house in a rage.
‘Forgive me,’ I lied. ‘I would not have hurt him.’
She smiled but said nothing and led me into her chamber where she offered me wine and a fresh ham bone.
I accepted the refreshment with a smile and some puzzlement at her kindness, but soon it came out that her conscience had been much moved by the consequences of the attack on me which she was almost certain had been arranged by Sir Olwyn. Naturally I did not dissuade her that my assault on the chirurgeon’s wife had been consequent on the addling of my brains by those villains’ cudgels, but I did say (to tickle her conscience the more) that I would certainly have swung if Rupert had not returned when he did.
‘ ’Tis a good friend,’ she agreed. ‘With a friend like that, who would need another?’
‘Nay, I have need of many friends,’ I answered. ‘The Prince may not serve every turn.’
‘What lies there in another’s power which the Prince cannot perform?’ she asked.
‘What no man can perform,’ I answered, dropping on one knee before her and taking her hand.
‘I do not take your meaning,’ she said coyly.
‘Take it now, and with it, everything!’ I replied slipping my hand into her bodice and squeezing first her right and then her left breast. She moved away, I pursued; she protested, I insisted; she softened, I hardened; she subsided, I ascended; she shuddered, I exploded; we swore eternal faith and I departed, thinking that in her letters to her husband, she had made no empty promise. Why she should have decided to yield at this particular moment I did not know.
Strange are the ways of women. Though as soldier knows the eve of war has ever been the special time for treats.
Now followed a good campaign, culminating in the sack of Leicester. Our artillery spent the afternoon blasting a hole in the south city wall. Then at midnight, the infantry (mostly Welsh recruits) attacked while we sat on our mounts and waited for the gates to be opened so that we might ride in and scour the town.
‘God’s leeks!’ said Nob Parkin impatiently after half an hour. ‘Those Welsh locusts will strip the town bare!’
‘There are plenty yet to kill,’ said Tom Turner confidently. I hoped so. I often felt my cornet would start on his own side if he felt his thirst for blood unslaked! Lauder went round the men, making sure they knew where our plunder waggons were stationed and that each group was equipped for its particular task. We had developed certain specialist skills so that nothing of value would be overlooked. Our gold and silversmiths’ party, for instance, carried with them powder barrels and long fuses to break their way through the heavy locks these distrusting tradesmen protected their wares with. And our china, glass and porcelain experts bore padded boxes for the safe transport of their fragile plunder.
At one o’clock, the city gates opened. The victory was ours. We moved quietly forward, heedless of the raging gallop of the rest of the cavalry and went about our business with the dignity of professionals.
Two hours later Jem came to me with word that our waggons were full and the men requested permission now to frolic a little. After work, play is the soldiers’ maxim, so I gladly gave command.
‘Wilt not join us, Captain?’ called Nob.
‘I will come to see you have not forgotten how to comport yourselves,’ I answered gayly and leaving the perforce continent Lauder to ensure the security of our waggons, I set off through the streets
at a canter.
Everywhere I saw death and destruction. Doors smashed, windows shattered, smoke belching skywards from fires no one surviving dared appear to quench. Only the dead of that city remained in the streets; men, women; children even. All living things are enemy to the conquerors of an intransigent city. The citizens had been invited to surrender and refused. The garrison had no choice, of course (as poor Frank Windebank had discovered), but the citizens themselves were free to make their own decisions and put their trust where they thought it most like to be rewarded. Well, they had backed the wrong horse.
My sword was still undrawn and unblooded. It did not bother me. I met Tom Turner and saw his right arm red to the elbow and beyond. He had taken my share and more.
Nob and his mates had found a tavern in whose cellars sheltered a dozen or more women, most of them no better than they should be. I went among the men offering encouragement with the flat of my sword and making the usual jokes but my heart was not in it. In the end I left them to their sweaty joys and rode through the devastated streets, thinking of Annette. A strange adventure befell me on that ride. As I passed an old stone church I heard the bells jangle in most devilish discord and on curiosity I turned Luke’s unquestioning head and rode in through the great open doors.
The source of the noise was easily seen. Some drunken soldiers had broken in to loot the church and the parson and some of his officers had attempted to prevent them. For their pains they had been bound around the gut with bell-ropes and the soldiers were amusing themselves by sending the struggling parson and his friends soaring into the bell-tower, vying with each other who could achieve the greatest height.
The noise of their laughter and the clang of the bells masked the rattle of Luke’s hooves on the stone floor and I was upon them before they were aware. The apparition of a man on a horse in a darkened church is a fearful thing or so I judged by their reaction. Their noise ceased, they desisted from their sport and pressed back against the wall with faces aghast.
‘Unbind these men!’ I commanded in sepulchral tones, more to test my newfound power than out of any particular sympathy with the hanging men. The soldiers hastened to obey me but as they finished their task, Luke raised his tail and dropped a mound of smoking shit. This homely act emboldened one of the soldiers to decide that if my horse were capable of such a deed, perhaps I also was just as far from being a spirit, and with a vile oath (which in that place must surely have marked him down for hell) he plucked a pistol from his waist and fired at me. The ball struck my shoulder, fell to the floor and bounced back towards him. With a scream of terror he fled and his fellows who on his example had drawn their weapons also flung them to the ground and followed him.
The released men lay half stunned on the flag-stones, regarding me as if they would have preferred the more comprehensible inhumanity of their tormentors to this strange revelation.
‘Be comforted, Master Parson,’ I said. ‘God has abandoned you, but you have friends in the underworld who love you.’
I laughed hollowly to underline the joke and backed Luke away. But the stupid vicar leapt suddenly to his feet and crying, ‘An thou be the devil himself, thou shalt not mock God in my church,’ he picked up one of the discarded pistols and fired it at me.
The ball took Luke in the neck and because of his brave heart he stood there solid as ever for a moment and I scarce knew he was hit. Then his forelegs buckled and I slid out of the saddle, sick with fear. Now he went over on his side and his legs threshed for a moment as he tried to rise again. His breath came and went in ugly gasps but his eyes held calmly to my face as though waiting for my command to stop this pain. There was nothing else to do but draw my pistol and put an end to it. After the explosion I closed my eyes. All was quiet now. When I opened them again I was standing among the swinging bell-ropes my sword in my hand, and all around me lay the mangled bodies of the parson and his friends.
Among them Luke lay quiet and still and comparatively unbloodied. Even in death they have more dignity than us. I wept now, remembering his love for me. He had been perhaps the least bien dressê of all my mounts and many a time his waywardness had almost put me in danger, yet his courage and affection had always got me safe away. This was a great loss.
Yet as I walked away with his saddle on my shoulder I felt a sense of loss greater even than that I had just sustained. It was as if a wheel had turned a full revolution. My life as a mercenary had begun thirty years ago with the slaying of a priest; suddenly I felt that the killing of this last one had brought it to an end.
‘Lauder,’ I said as we made breakfast of a cold capon and small beer, ‘do you think I am fit for marriage?’
He spat a bit of gristle into the fire and laughed, showing the ragged row of stumps which did him service as teeth.
‘If you may find the right lass, well then, aye,’ he said.
‘And where should I look for her?’ I asked.
‘In a booth at a Bart’s Fair,’ he said promptly. ‘Where else will you find a woman able to be on her back in bed, on her knees in prayer, and on her last legs in desperation, all of which things are necessary in any fool who’d marry Carlo Fantom.’
I grinned at his insults and drank some beer. It was sharp and cold, a good taste to go with the smell of smouldering wood and the pleasant sharpness of a late spring dawn. We had not looked for quarters in the city but remained without, guarding our plunder and watching for the return of the men. I had not slept, nor Lauder either who had found with age he needed scarce more than one hour’s real sleep in twenty-four, though he could doze on an ambling horse for mile after mile.
‘What think you of Mistress Annette Matthias?’ I asked next.
He picked the chicken carcase clean and cracked the rib-cage between his palms.
‘I have not met the lady,’ he said. ‘But from report, she is of good repute and fairly fleshed. But poor.’
I smiled at his warning and gestured towards our waggons.
‘I have enough,’ I said.
‘Perhaps. She is not reported to be a fool, though?’ he continued.
‘I hope not.’
‘Then she can scarcely be the lass you’re thinking to wed,’ he mocked.
‘Lauder!’ I said warningly, unamused this time.
‘Well, man, look at yourself! What can you offer a respectable widow? She is a widow, you’re sure of it? There’s nae chance her man will prove to be but lying low till these troubles pass?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure. I blew his brains out at Edgehill,’ I answered.
‘Oh, Fantom, Fantom,’ he sighed. ‘You’re a strange and bloody man.’
‘I did not know him,’ I protested. ‘Nor her till we met at Oxford. Something about her face has charmed my mind, Lauder.’
‘If it’s just the face, then all’s not lost,’ he answered caustically. ‘The smallpox may pit it, or powder scar it, or wind and sun rough it, and age will surely wrinkle it. Man, you will not condemn the girlie for something so accidental as a face?’
‘Lauder, you stupid old sod, will you not understand what I’m saying? I want to change my life, marry, settle in peace somewhere, rear horses, children even. I’m sick of soldiering!’
But he just laughed the more, as if a blackamoor should put flour on his face and call himself Queen of the May.
‘Though this I will say, Fantom,’ he added finally. ‘I will see this face for it must be a rare face. Eh, man, faces are not things ye’ve ever paid much mind to in the past.’
I rose and left him, my breakfast quite spoilt. He shouted after me, ‘Fantom, regard yourself, man! You’re like me. Ye’ll live forever before you’ll die a good manl’
Later we divided up our plunder. A trooper was discovered attempting to conceal a piece of gold plate in one of his boots. He had offended in this before (hence his fellows watched him closely) and had suffered the tenfold fine which was our first punishment. Our rules laid down only one penalty for a repeat of the offence – death. This
had been necessary only once in our short history and I had carried out the sentence instantly in plain view of the others, who had been much chastened by what they saw, proving the insight of mother church and father law in these matters.
This time I passed the task to Jem Croft who without a hesitation went to where the poor fellow lay bound beneath a waggon and slit his throat. If Jem had had a conscience he would have been a mighty man for God, for he brought to everything he did the fervour of religious fanaticism.
Lauder was sitting on the waggon which was taking our goods to the impromptu market which always springs up after a big looting and at which local people attend to snap up bargains of their neighbours’ treasures, or even buy back their own. He looked down at me strangely, then gave commands and the waggon moved forward leaving the dead man at my feet.
‘Bury him,’ I said. ‘His portion goes to the general fund.’
I left them digging a shallow grave with Jem giving directions, eager to get to his funeral oration which was one of our best entertainments.
We did not stay long in Leicester itself, but dithered in what seemed to me a state of uncertainty all over the midlands. My men took the opportunity of picking the area clean and I began to wish that they should have the chance to spend as well as get money, for too much possession makes a soldier begin to take his future seriously. Perhaps this was my trouble. As usual I had lodged the greater part of my share in a safe place in Leicester, beneath a very old flat tombstone in the yard of the same church wherein I had killed the parson. Making allowances for accidental discovery or destruction of as many as three or four or my caches, I still had a goodly store of riches to be collected after the troubles were over. Or perhaps before. Annette was French by birth and would surely be happy to live over the sea with me till England came to its senses. Then we might return, for I had grown fond of this landscape and liked the feel of a great salt moat all around me.
Captain Fantom Page 17