‘I need a saddled horse, soldier,’ she told him, aware that she had at her command the forceful manner to swear him to secrecy once he had done her bidding.
‘Yes, my lady,’ the guard stammered.
Gambling on the quick-witted Piper to catch on, McFeeley did a fast twist on his buttocks to sweep his legs round to knock the sentry’s legs out from underneath him. Quick as a flash, Piper dropped on to his back and reared up his legs to slam both feet together hard into the falling soldier’s chest. It should have been perfect had not the musket discharged as the guard had fallen. The explosion it made in the night was shattering, alerting the whole camp.
A shout of, ‘Call out the guard!’ was reiterated so that it rose and fell in the darkness.
Springing to their feet, McFeeley and Piper ran, neither slowing nor ducking as a bullet, fired by the second sentry, passed with a sibilant hiss between their heads. Leaping a stream they ran across a meadow, the sounds of a pursuit being organized adding speed to their feet.
They went over the top of the hill and were pounding down to where a meandering river waveringly marked out the nadir of a valley. Wading across the shallow river they went up the far bank and took a meandering route that Piper gaspingly assured McFeeley would lead them to Shepton Mallet.
‘Where’s Jack?’ McFeeley inquired when they slowed their pace.
‘He was on duty and couldn’t get away,’ Piper replied, pointing to a small wood to their left. ‘Through those trees,’ he said, ‘and then just half a mile along a stony track and we’re there.’
‘Good. Whose orders were you acting on when you came to get me? Captain Critchell’s?’
‘Captain Critchell’s not at the camp,’ said Piper.
This puzzled McFeeley, who could not imagine Lord John Churchill ordering any kind of rescue party, one-man or otherwise. Piper now had an evasiveness about him.
‘Who gave you the order to come and get me, soldier?’
‘Nobody,’ Piper answered, shrugging. ‘It was just my idea.’
‘You knucklehead, Jonathan! They’ll lock you up when we get back,’ McFeeley exclaimed.
Tilting his head to look up at the steadily brightening sky, Piper observed, ‘I don’t know about me being locked up, sir, but they would be stringing you up about now!’
‘You know that I can’t argue against regulations,’ McFeeley warned. ‘But I owe you my life and will do everything I can in mitigation.’
‘I understand the position I have put you in, sir,’ Piper said. ‘I hesitate to advise an officer, but you’re going to have to get out of that Monmouth uniform before we approach the camp, sir.’
About to agree, McFeeley stayed quiet and gestured Piper back into the bushes as approaching hoof beats could be heard. Whether it was friend or foe, McFeeley was taking no chances. Climbing up a tree trunk he waited, ready to spring. The rider came on steadily, allowing the horse to pick its way through the tangled undergrowth. At the right time, McFeeley launched himself through the air.
Colliding with the rider, he wrapped his arms round him and the two of them crashed to the ground on the far side of the startled horse. Slightly winded by the fall, McFeeley lay still for a moment, his captive lifeless in his arms. Then he found himself looking down on the white face of Lady Sarah Churchill. Eyes closed, she was unmoving, and McFeeley was mortified. But her eyelids first flickered and then lifted. There was not only consciousness but the shock of recognition in the eyes looking up at him.
‘Oh, dear God, have I hurt you, Lady Sarah?’ McFeeley groaned.
‘Let us turn to Joshua, chapter twenty-two, verse twenty-two,’ said the Reverend Robert Ferguson, who had laid down the sword he had waved at Taunton to don a gown and clergyman’s staff as he preached to a congregation that packed Bridgwater Castle.
In the front pew Monmouth was ecstatic. Bridgwater, a town of dissenters, had given him a royal reception. Backed by an enthusiastic town council, the mayor had read his proclamation at the Market Cross, and hundreds of men had come forward eagerly to serve in his army. He employed blacksmiths who toiled day and night converting scythes into hand weapons. He then formed a scythe company for each of his regiments, using his experience and innate talent as a military commander to give them regular battle-drills and daily training.
Now Ferguson had used matins to turn this huge audience into a holy crusade. His stirring words had every person there ready to fight for God and their ‘king’, Monmouth.
In that congregation, but not a part of it, was Kathleen Nerney. Kathleen had just celebrated her sixteenth birthday as she had many of her anniversaries that had gone before – fatherless. Michael Nerney was a Catholic recusant, an honest God-fearing man who was imprisoned indefinitely for refusing to attend Church of England services. Angered by the double standards of Charles II, who had refused to grant a general pardon for Catholics, but had sneaked a priest into his chambers to administer the last rites, Kathleen had faith in James II and saw Monmouth as a menace to people like her father. There were many of them rotting in prisons solely because of their religion.
Sickened by the euphoric mood here in the castle, she fumed with impotence. What could a young girl do to harm this fast-expanding rebellion? If there was any action she could take, no matter how small and ineffective, Kathleen was determined to do it. Glowering with hatred at Monmouth, resplendent in princely purple and with the Garter star prominent, the young girl regretted that she possessed neither the courage nor the ability to carry out the assassination of the rebel duke.
Kathleen looked at those around her, desperately in need of a kindred spirit. There wasn’t one. These were the people of Bridgwater who constantly harassed and persecuted her and her mother. Blinkered by their own selfish aims they didn’t even have an inkling of how much good folk such as her father had suffered and for how long.
When the Reverend Ferguson had ranted his final rant and the congregation had cried out its last response of loyalty to Monmouth, the huge audience crushed together in a move towards the exit. Kathleen found herself abused because of her pretty face and shapely body. Pressed claustrophobically from all sides, she shrivelled in disgust as she felt a determined hand groping her.
Turning she saw leering faces all around her. Tears streamed down her face as she ran all the way home, promising herself that she would play a significant part in any local opposition to Monmouth. Bursting in through the door of her home, and into her mother’s comforting arms, Kathleen was sure that the invasion of her physical privacy she had just experienced would be the worst ever time in her life. The heavy curtain draped between Kathleen Nerney and the immediate future mercifully spared her from much greater trauma.
‘I’m not conversant enough with the facts to invoke criticism, Lieutenant, but I wager that you were ill-advised to return to the camp where Lady Sarah, the Lady of Brigadier-General Churchill was,’ Captain Claude Critchell said, fixing McFeeley with a watery-eyed stare.
Despite Critchell’s disclaimer, McFeeley recognized that he was being criticized, and unfairly so. Lady Sarah had, fortunately, not been unhurt to any real extent when he had knocked her out of the saddle. He’d had no way of knowing who the rider was, or that it was a woman in the saddle.
Although it must be plain to Churchill, and excitingly clear to McFeeley that she had ridden out that night with the purpose of helping him, Lady Sarah had not confessed to this. All that she would say was that she had been unable to sleep so had decided to take a horse ride. Churchill hadn’t believed her but had made no accusations in front of others, and McFeeley felt sure that neither would he do so when he and Lady Sarah were alone. Even so, the brigadier-general had a controlled but barely concealed anger towards McFeeley.
It was purely the fact that he, McFeeley, was needed for further espionage work that saved him from being buried under the boredom of some mediocre duty. Jonathan Piper was put under arrest while McFeeley was requested to await the return of Captain Critchell, who would g
ive him his next assignment.
‘I asked for none of this to happen, Captain,’ he explained to Critchell. ‘Not for one moment did I suspect it would be Lady Sarah riding through the woods at that hour of the night.’
‘I accept that,’ Critchell nodded, treating each of his nostrils separately to a sniff of an orchid that he delicately carried. ‘It would seem that you have a drastic effect on females, Colm, and Lady Sarah would not seem to be immune. You reap the wild wind of what you sow.’
‘Yet I cannot be held responsible, Captain,’ McFeeley insisted.
‘Not in a moral sense, no. But, militarily, someone has to be deemed responsible for everything,’ Critchell said with a sad shaking of his head, ‘and the brigadier-general is unhappy with you at the present time.’
‘Are you telling me that I am to be relieved of special duties, Captain?’
‘Not at all, not at all, Colm,’ Critchell seemed stunned by the suggestion. ‘We have a new king ruling, Lieutenant, and I think you’ll agree we all have to do our utmost for His Majesty.’
‘I wouldn’t get carried away,’ McFeeley shrugged. ‘Even when they’re perched on the loftiest throne in the world they are still sitting on their own arse, Captain.’
‘Perhaps that is not a view you should express to anyone but me, Colm,’ Critchell gave an insincere smile. ‘Now, these are dire times and there is a mission for you to undertake. When you left James Scott, was he aware that you were really a lieutenant in the king’s army?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then you could rejoin him without arousing his suspicions?’
‘I can’t say that he wouldn’t be suspicious,’ McFeeley said, ‘but he would accept me.’
A pleased Critchell slapped his booted thigh in delight. ‘That is what I wanted to hear, Colm, exactly what I wanted to hear. You see, we have the might to crush James Scott and his army of sod-kickers but to do that it is essential that we know where he is. We want you to go back to him, taking a few men with you who you can send back to us as messengers.’
‘For someone who is constantly ridiculed, Scott would appear to have you all worried, Captain,’ McFeeley said with a trace of sarcasm.
‘He may be leading regiments with straw in their hair, Lieutenant,’ Critchell acknowledged before going on with an admission, ‘but it must be borne in mind that he is known to be a superb commander with an absolutely brilliant grasp of strategy. Strategy, Colm. It is his strategy that has us concerned!’
‘Which is where I am needed,’ McFeeley said.
‘Urgently needed, Colm. You can have your pick of the men, regardless of rank,’ Critchell offered. ‘I have authority to make available to you every man up to and including the rank of major!’
‘All I need are Sergeant Jack and Private Jonathan Piper,’ McFeeley announced.
Critchell did a dubious pursing of his lips. ‘Piper is under close arrest, as you know, so that could present a difficulty.’
‘You said you had the authority to make any man available to me,’ McFeeley reminded the captain.
‘That’s true,’ Captain Critchell assented, ‘and you shall have the two men you request.’
After making that promise, Critchell went quiet for a time. In his last few minutes of silence he studied McFeeley intently. With a deep sigh he then said, ‘Where you are heading now, Colm, the Bristol/Gloucester area, is a Monmouth stronghold. If there are one or two Royalists there, which I doubt, you are not likely to meet them.’
‘Is this another of your attempts at giving a concealed warning, Captain?’
‘It is just that,’ Critchell nodded. ‘Once you leave here, Colm, you will be isolated, completely alone.’
‘I didn’t have a lot of support last time,’ McFeeley complained. ‘I was used to shoot one of our own men, who was himself being used—’
‘That was dictated by circumstances,’ Critchell interrupted.
‘In addition to that, I would have been executed by Colonel Kirke if Piper hadn’t—’
‘Again, there was good reason for that unfortunate event,’ Critchell came in once more. ‘Had I been nearer then I would have had you released immediately.’
‘Would it be uncharitable of me to expect a hidden agenda of treachery in this new mission?’ McFeeley inquired.
‘I am of a mind that it would be most foolish of you, perhaps fatally so, not to protect your back at all times,’ was Critchell’s wry comment.
‘You’re a man who lives dangerously, Colm McFeeley. Perhaps too dangerously!’
Lady Henrietta made the comment from where she stood by the bedroom window, naked. Lying on the bed, arms up with his hands behind his head, enjoying the special relaxation that comes in the wake of uninhibited lovemaking, McFeeley studied her. Did a man and a woman who had been intimate ever part completely? He mused. Although he couldn’t clearly remember them all, the women in his life were still attached to him in some way, as if joined by some slender and invisible umbilical cord of love. Sun came through the window to show Henrietta’s firm, bare breasts back-lit, the fine, fair, soft down on the skin erect and sparkling. They were twin hills of flesh over which Monmouth had oft sensually wandered. In his dreamy, contemplative state McFeeley wondered if with their acts of love, had Henrietta, the rebel duke, and himself woven threads in an unseen and parallel world. Threads that would forever bind the three of them together.
‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.
‘Well …’ she thought on what she should say, running a tongue lightly over full lips that took only a split second to become charged with passion. ‘This is the house of Captain Hucker, who is possibly James’s closest friend! The Captain will, I am sure, regard it as imperative to acquaint Monmouth with the fact that you have shared my bed.’
‘I would imagine Monmouth has more on his mind than the possibility of your infidelity,’ McFeeley said, being kind.
He doubted if Monmouth had given Henrietta a thought since he had ridden out of Taunton. The rebel duke had both an ample heart and a roving eye. Among his many conquests was Eleanor Needham, the most celebrated of all the Court’s beautiful women. McFeeley had glimpsed her just once, when he had been serving in London, and had, ever since, been haunted by the vision. Eleanor was perhaps at the head of Monmouth’s list of female priorities, for she had taken less than four years to bear him four children. Maybe McFeeley was being unduly cynical, but he was of the opinion that if Monmouth was thinking of Henrietta at all, then it would just be to compare her performance with that of the woman who would, right then, be supplying his needs at Bridgwater.
‘I wouldn’t like to think that James wasn’t thinking of me, as I am of him, no matter what he has to contend with.’
McFeeley did a mental shaking of his head in wonderment as he got up from the bed. Having just lain with him, and not mentioned her husband even in passing, Henrietta was speaking of Monmouth as if they were a faithful husband and wife who owed one another total loyalty. Never one for illusion, McFeeley was disturbed when encountering it in others.
Going to the washstand he poured water from the blue china jug into the matching bowl. Scooping it up with his hands to dash it against his face and chest he was brought fully awake and felt invigorated by the cold water. Satisfied with his new alertness, he knew that he had to keep moving, to join Monmouth at Bridgwater without delay. Jack and Piper, both of whom had rooms in the nearby Red Lion, would be waiting for his call.
Aware of his urgency, Henrietta, moved by a woman’s need to cling for as long as possible to a man after loving, asked, ‘You will take breakfast with me, Colm?’
Wanting to refuse, knowing that he should refuse, that his duty as a soldier demanded that he refuse, McFeeley was moved by the fear of rejection that was so evident in her soft eyes as she looked at him. He nodded his assent, but when they were seated at the table downstairs he discovered Henrietta had slipped into a pensive mood.
‘You must be the most enigmatic charact
er I have ever come across, Colm,’ she commented as they ate. ‘To be truthful, I am far from sure which side you are on.’
‘Does it matter, Henrietta?’ he countered. ‘When this is over, when the last cannon falls silent, it is unlikely that we will ever meet again.’
‘I know, and it saddens me. Do you feel nothing, Colm?’
‘On the contrary,’ he began, but said nothing else. All the goodbyes he had ever said in his lifetime had accumulated to become a permanent ache in him.
Her eyes were on him intently, and the little catch in her voice evinced that she was shaken by an inward revelation. ‘You’re far from being as tough as you make yourself out to be.’
‘You are being fooled by my temporary weakness caused by you upstairs,’ he said as a cover. McFeeley didn’t like the post-coitus inquisitiveness of women. It was a time when there were chinks in the personality armour that he was always wore.
‘I don’t think so,’ she expressed dissatisfaction with his answer, biting lightly on her heavy lower lip before going on. ‘How would it be, Colm, if life were different? If you and me went on together from this moment?’
‘Within days you would be longing for James Scott,’ he told her.
Inclining her head a little, she mused. ‘Perhaps so. And who would you be longing for, Colm?’
Not knowing the answer himself, he couldn’t reply to her. Rosin came instantly into his mind, but she was a ghost and Henrietta was dealing in flesh and blood. None of the others had registered with him, even the golden-haired Rachel, as fiery and skilled as Aphrodite herself, had been nothing but an appeasement of hunger. Rachel and those who had gone before her had satisfied an appetite in him without touching his soul. Conversely, Lady Sarah Churchill had bypassed his appetite to touch his soul.
‘The army is all I would miss,’ he replied, and could tell that Henrietta knew that he was lying.
When they were outside, both delaying the final farewell, and with Jack and Piper waiting for him at a respectful distance, Henrietta had become even more melancholy. McFeeley gained the impression that she had something to say but lacked the resolve to say it.
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