Now, she eased down onto her knees, resting her elbows on her bed, palms clasped against her chin. ‘Please, Lord, give me the courage to do what must be done,’ she said in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘Make me brave like my mother, that I may fear no evil. Make me strong, Lord.’ The prayer was softly spoken and yet sent Heavenward with the force of a ball from a musket. For she would not let her condition weaken her in the face of the challenge. The child would not diminish her by its vulnerability. Rather it would lend its burgeoning strength to her own. The unborn’s vitality, its naturalness, would flow through Bess’s veins and steel her sinews against the enemy, against these unnatural traitors who would make war upon their own king.
She climbed to her feet and went over to the window. ‘You are my father’s enemies and so you are my enemies,’ she said, looking out across the dew-soaked lawns, beyond the defenders smoking their pipes behind their barricades and gabions, their muskets and pole-arms leant against the bulwarks. ‘God have mercy on you.’
There was a knock on the chamber door and at her word it opened wide enough for a shock of unruly copper hair to push into the room.
‘Lady Mary is expecting you, Miss Elizabeth,’ young Jacob said, his eyes fixed on the floor. Crab was there too, the wolf-hound’s big brown eyes looking up expectantly at Bess.
‘I’ve told you you must call me Bess, Jacob,’ she said, gathering up the fur-lined wool cloak she had taken to sleeping beneath, and throwing it round her shoulders.
‘Yes, Miss Eliz—’ He gave a chastised nod. ‘Bess.’
‘That’s better,’ she said, smiling at him and rubbing Crab’s head. The boy had become a quiet, serious young man in the months he had been living at Shear House and Bess’s heart bled for him. For all that he had lost. ‘That vain young Captain Downing is here for his answer then,’ she said, following Jacob and Crab down the stairs, ‘and so he shall have it.’
‘I heard some of the men talking . . . Bess,’ the boy said, glancing at her from beneath fair lashes. ‘They were laying a wager on whether Lady Mary would surrender the house.’
‘They still have money to waste?’ Bess exclaimed, as Isaac limped to the front door ahead of her and opened it. ‘Then we shall be able to buy more powder and shot.’
‘Ah, there you are, Elizabeth,’ her mother said. With her was Major Radcliffe and six of his best men, all armed with matchlocks and assorted blades. The men dipped their heads at Bess and she nodded and smiled back, hoping to give them a portrait of calm resolve. ‘Are you feeling up to a little walk, dear?’ her mother asked, a wry smile tugging her lips. ‘The young captain is waiting for us.’
‘The air will be good for me, Mother,’ Bess said, and with that the small party set off along the drive and the men at their positions in trenches and behind gabions filled with earth doffed their caps and stood tall as they passed.
When they arrived at the main gate Lady Mary ordered it opened and this time she invited Captain Downing to step inside the walls his demi-cannon had been pounding on and off for the last four days. The captain seemed surprised at the invitation and Bess saw an expression flash across his face that looked for all the world like relief, and she knew that he thought they had seen the sense of giving in to him. He believed they would yield up the house, and suddenly Bess feared that they would.
Two belligerent-looking men in buff-coats came with the captain and they eyed Radcliffe like farmers sizing up a bull at the market and wondering how much it would cost them. The Major of the House paid these men no heed at all and Bess saw how this riled them, though they uttered not a word, leaving all the talking to their young captain.
‘The time for civilities has passed, my lady,’ he was saying, ‘and this issue will be resolved.’ He held his three-bar pot under his arm and his other hand rested on the pommel of the sword at his hip, a subtle reminder perhaps of what the defenders of Shear House could expect if they resisted further. ‘You have done your duty and your husband could not expect more. You have put up an admirable show of defiance,’ he went on with a smile that was so many crumbs strewn across the ground for the hungry. ‘You have received the attentions of our big guns—’
‘You have only the one gun,’ Radcliffe interrupted, ‘a demi-cannon for which you’ve insufficient powder else you’d fire it more. Though you could have a cannon royal aimed at my arse and I would not break a sweat,’ he said, his one-eyed glare threatening to burn a hole through Radcliffe, ‘for your gunners could not hit a barn wall from the inside with the doors shut.’
‘I can assure you – Mister Radcliffe, is it? – that our powder cache is more than sufficient,’ the captain replied. ‘As for my gunners, do not mistake clemency for incompetence.’ To Downing’s credit he returned a glare of equal contempt to the old veteran’s. But there were other eyes lending their weight to this exchange too, Bess knew. Radcliffe’s men stared down from the makeshift ramparts or turned their faces from the loopholes in the boundary wall. She knew also that back at the house women and children would be pressed to the upper windows, eager to catch a glimpse of Lady Mary, their protector, talking with the rebels.
‘Now, my lady, I must insist on having your answer,’ Captain Downing said, clearly buoyed by his riposte to Radcliffe.
‘Very well, Captain Downing,’ Lady Mary replied, her voice considerably louder than it had been thus far. ‘You have persisted with this outrage, with this most grave offence, and as due reward I would have you hanged from this very post,’ she said, nodding up at one of the stone lions. ‘But, Captain, you are nothing more than the foolish instrument of a traitor’s pride.’ Bess saw the young captain flush, but he held his tongue. ‘Take this answer back to . . .’ she paused for effect, ‘Colonel Egerton, is it? That he, insolent rebel that he is, shall have neither persons, goods, nor house. If the providence of God prevent it not, my goods and house shall burn in his sight; and myself, my daughter, and my soldiers too, rather than fall into the rebels’ hands, will seal our religion and loyalty in the same flame.’ At this the men of Shear House’s garrison cheered and the three rebels looked around them warily. Major Radcliffe was grinning, the corners of his remaining eye creased like a crow’s foot.
‘God save the King!’ Lady Mary exclaimed.
‘God save the King!’ came the reply from those nearby and was echoed as it travelled across the lawns by other men at other stockades.
‘God save the King!’ Bess heard herself yell. And God save us, she thought, because death is coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Friday, 21 October 1642
TELL YOUR KING he will find us at Kineton. Tom’s words rolled over in Mun’s mind like pebbles tumbling in the never-ending surf, as rain seethed in the darkness. Twenty-four men rode hunched in their saddles, bad-weather cloaks cinched tight at their necks to keep the water off firelocks, wheellocks and powder flasks. At the head of the short scouting column rode Captain Nehemiah Boone, his mood as black and foul as the night because he did not trust Mun’s information and thought they were drowning in their own skins for no good reason. For Mun had claimed that one of the prisoners had betrayed Essex’s position to Corporal Scrope with the big man’s hand round his throat and his knife at his eye – before they had attacked Scrope, killing him and almost killing Mun, too.
‘They never mentioned Kineton to me, Rivers,’ Boone had said, smoothing his moustaches between finger and thumb, his eyes searching Mun’s as though he suspected him of some deceit. ‘I’ll wager the traitorous scum are still in Worcester.’
‘Corporal Scrope was persuasive, sir,’ Mun had said with a shrug of his shoulders, glancing at Prince Rupert. ‘The rebel thought we were going to kill him if he did not tell us what we would hear.’
The Prince had scowled at that, for he had already expressed his disappointment in Mun for going along with Corporal Scrope’s vengeful plan that night, saying it was not behaviour becoming a gentleman in Mun’s position let alone the son of a knight. But other ma
tters had overshadowed the events of that night and now the Prince was still fuming at the prisoners’ escape. He almost refused to believe that the rebels had dared infiltrate his camp, blow up a powder magazine and break a handful of men out from under his regal nose.
‘He was a rough fellow, your corporal,’ Prince Rupert had said to Boone, not looking up as he filled a pipe with tobacco, thumbing the leaves into the bowl.
‘I was somewhat persuasive myself, Your Highness,’ Boone had replied, clearly put out by the unspoken suggestion that Corporal Scrope would have inspired more fear in the captured Parliamentarians.
‘I am sure you were, Captain,’ the Prince said, raising a placating hand. ‘But perhaps the rebels decided to hold their tongues when they heard the hammers on the gallows you were building a spit away from their gaol. Not much point in talking if you’re for the rope anyway,’ he said, hoisting a dark eyebrow.
Boone had conceded the point with a purse of his lips as he took his own pipe from inside his tunic.
Then the Prince had looked up at Boone, fixing him with those intelligent eyes. ‘Take a small party and ride to Kineton. It’s a market town, is it not?’ Boone nodded. ‘Sniff it out, Captain. If Rivers believes the rebel was telling the truth then it is surely worth a short ride.’
‘But Rivers and Scrope were going to throttle the bastard,’ Boone had protested. ‘The runt would have said anything.’ He took a wax taper from the table and held it to a candle flame until it lit.
‘And you were going to hang them, Captain,’ the Prince had said, drawing deeply on his pipe and exhaling so that the smoke wreathed his handsome face and coiffured curls. Mun had felt Boone bristle beside him at that. ‘Besides, my uncle has already sent Lord Digby and four hundred Horse out west looking for the rebel curs,’ the Prince said almost plaintively. ‘Rather we find the enemy than Digby, heh?’
‘Digby couldn’t find his arse with both hands,’ Boone said, at which the Prince had almost smiled.
‘Ride to Kineton,’ Prince Rupert went on, ‘and then we shall know one way or the other.’
Boone had raised the taper to his pipe, the stem of which was clasped between his lips, then stopped and took the pipe out, a frown contracting his brow in the molten copper play of firelight.
‘Now?’ he’d asked, his top lip curled to reveal a flash of tooth.
‘The dogs of war heed not the rain,’ Prince Rupert had replied, one hand pulling the candle across the table to illuminate some crude maps, the other gesturing to the door, flapping languidly.
Now, the King’s army was on the march again, heading for Banbury to attack Parliament’s outpost there, thus opening the road to Oxford and undermining Essex’s stronghold at Warwick with its well-garrisoned castle. And Mun was soaked to his marrow and stretched on the rack of his own guilt. He had murdered Corporal Scrope albeit with his brother’s help. He had blown up a Royalist powder magazine and orchestrated an attack which had seen men on his own side killed. He had freed enemy prisoners, rebels who would conceivably kill King’s men in the next days. Even if none ever discovered the truth of it, if he managed to keep it buried until the end of his days, he would have to bear it. The betrayal would yoke him. And yet, he questioned what sort of man he would be if he had stood aside and watched them hang his brother. Family is family.
‘Blood is blood,’ he muttered to himself, earning a sideways glance from O’Brien. But the Irishman did not probe and Mun was thankful for that as the recent events turned over in his mind and his conscience scavenged like crows in a ploughed field, finding nothing of sustenance. If Tom had seen reason and turned from his path of vengeance, I would not shoulder this shame, a voice in his mind dared suggest. We should be in this storm together, brother, fighting with father. Rivers men doing our duty to our king. But the voice was drowned out by louder truths. I failed to turn Tom from his course, he thought. I failed us all.
‘You want war, brother,’ he murmured. ‘Well, it is coming.’
The brooding, rain-lashed Wormington Hills were no fit place for a God-fearing man to be on such a devilish night, so the red-haired Irishman O’Brien was saying when Daniel Bard came galloping out of the dark, his raw-boned face glistening beneath his pot helmet as he pulled up and walked his horse to Captain Boone. He had ridden to the top of a scrub-lined crest while the rest of the small troop had gathered beneath the dripping branches of a gnarly ancient oak, moaning about having to be out when others were keeping warm and dry.
‘They’re here, Captain,’ Bard said. His long grey hair was plastered against his hollow cheeks and Mun thought he looked like a living skeleton. A look the savage grin on his face did nothing to contradict.
‘How many, Corporal?’ Boone asked and Bard’s grin twitched at the use of his rank because he had not wanted the promotion. Boone and Prince Rupert had forced it on him. With Scrope dead the troop needed an experienced man and Bard was as experienced as they came.
‘All of them,’ Bard said. ‘Every mother’s whoreson. Every last bloody one of them by the looks of it.’
As Bard turned his horse back around Boone looked at Mun and for a heartbeat Mun almost thought the captain was about to acknowledge that Mun had been right and he had been wrong. But there was more chance of the sun suddenly appearing in the sky and drying their bones, he knew, as Boone kicked his heels and followed his corporal up the rise to take a look for himself. Mun and the others followed.
There, on the plain below, their myriad fires struggling against the deluge, was Parliament’s rebel army. It was vast and the sight of it made Mun’s breath catch in his throat. Well, little brother, his mind whispered, here we are. Just like you wanted.
But Mun wanted it too, he realized now, looking down upon the enemy camp. At last the game of cat and mouse could end and the real fight begin. The King’s righteous army would crash into these rebels like an avenging wave, sweeping them from the plain and drowning their sedition once and for all.
‘Now that’s a sight to freeze a man’s balls,’ O’Brien said, shaking his head in wonder.
‘Then it’s just as well you don’t have any, you Irish troll,’ Richard Downes said, spitting rain.
Vincent Rowe sniggered at that, earning a growl from O’Brien. ‘Another snort out of you, young Vincent, and I’ll ride back to camp with yer own balls ’neath my saddle,’ the Irishman threatened.
‘So Lord Digby is still chasing shadows and we have found the rats’ nest,’ Captain Boone remarked, as much in awe of the sight before them as the rest of them, or so it seemed to Mun. ‘Corporal, what would His Highness the Prince do were he here now?’
Leaning forward over his saddle’s pommel, Bard looked across at his captain, the whites of his eyes glowing dully. ‘The Prince would charge down this hill and put the whoresons to flight,’ he said, ‘the whole bloody lot of ’em.’ Mun got the impression he was only half jesting.
‘And I’d wager they would fly, too, like starlings, the damn cowards,’ Boone agreed. ‘But I fear His Majesty the King would resent not being invited to the ball. For it shall be quite the dance,’ he said, hauling his big mare round, his lips pulled back from his teeth.
Mun turned Hector and gave him the heel and in a heartbeat he was flying through the sheeting rain with the others, his nerves thrumming because they had found the enemy and now there would be a battle. There had to be. But as he flew, his world shrunken to himself and Hector and the mad rhythm of many hooves drumming the drenched earth, an iced rope snared his guts. It drew tight as a noose. Because he knew the time had come to tell his father about Tom.
Mun wished he had been there to see the Prince receive the news, but he could imagine well enough his reaction. It would be sheer feral joy, for the Prince was a child of war. Battle was what he lived for, it was the yardstick against which he measured himself and others. Mun had seen him shortly after Captain Boone had delivered his report. The Prince had walked through the camp like a common soldier, appearing suddenly in the feebl
e glow of the fire by which Mun and the others crouched and stood, trying to dry their clothes, for the rain had seemingly abated.
‘Rivers!’ Prince Rupert said. Beside him his white poodle, Boy, barked his own greeting and Mun crouched to rub the tight wet curls on the dog’s head. It gave a rolling growl and snapped its teeth and Mun pulled his hand away to the sound of the Prince laughing. ‘He’s eager for the fight like the rest of us,’ the Prince said. ‘Would you believe it but the rebels have written songs about him! They say Boy is the Devil in disguise come to help me. That he is invulnerable to attack and can catch bullets fired at me in his mouth! Now that’s a faithful hound, hey?’
‘They also say he can find hidden treasure, Your Highness,’ O’Brien said, grinning. ‘Now that’s what I call a dog!’ They all laughed at that, for the big Irishman, standing there drying his stockings above the fire, looked like a man who could use a few pieces of buried treasure.
Mun had also heard it said that the dog was the Prince’s familiar. He suspected others were thinking the same though none chose to mention it.
‘It would seem Corporal Scrope did not die for nothing, would it not?’ Prince Rupert asked him. ‘And we can be glad he squeezed that rebel like an arse sponge. Though it is a pity Scrope gave his life for the information.’
Mun smiled. ‘He was a good soldier,’ he said, which was no lie. There was something about the Prince that made Mun loath to lie to him.
‘Tomorrow at last we shall have our battle. If the rebels stand,’ the Prince added. ‘Is Hector ready for the tumult? There will be more guns than you have ever heard.’ He grinned. ‘It will sound like the gates of Hell opening.’
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