Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  “Troubles?” she asked dangerously. “You mean my disfigurements?”

  “You aren’t disfigured,” Mary Keziah scolded, bustling in to the room to support the merchant’s rapidly collapsing position. Bella stalked the room, paused by the fire like some infernal, crop-headed princess.

  “You’re practically as good as new, isn’t she sir?”

  “You what? No, I mean yes. Of course you are. Pretty as a picture, always were.”

  Bella glared at the pair of them, then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Crows and gulls flapped from chimneys. Half the tiles in Bristol shook and slid sideways on their battens.

  Mary smiled wanly.

  “It’s good to see her, back to her old self,” she offered. Morrison raised an eyebrow.

  “Aye. It’s as if she’s never been away,” he declared.

  *************************

  He had stayed out of her way for the next few days, busy about his workshops and manufactories along the docks. Busy putting what remained of his affairs in order.

  So it was days before he had heard the first whispers about Bella’s scandalous liaisons around the keep.

  One of the servants in Rupert’s headquarters - the kitchens to be precise - had passed on the garrison tittle-tattle. For a shilling or two.

  Morrison had closed his eyes, despairing not so much his daughter’s pathological refusal to act with the slightest decorum but at her staggering lack of foresight.

  Couldn’t she see the way the war was going? Three years of to-ing and fro-ing but the New Model was tightening its grip. And here she was setting her cap at another likely lout of a cavalier.

  What was wrong with Parlaiment’s men? Didn’t they measure up? He stowed that thought away with the rest of his troubles.

  God damn him! Was the girl blind, daft - or merely as wilful as she had always been?

  Morrison shook his head. He had imagined she had been avoiding him, rather than hiding herself away fornicating with that damned Swede Porthcurn.

  The rogue had clearly spent too much of his time whoring his way around the German wars, imagining he could besport himself under their noses.

  Everyone knew Rupert was notoriously fickle when involved in affairs of the heart. Or breeches, Sir Gilbert thought hotly.

  He’d challenged her about it when she re-appeared for supper, but her careless shake of the head told him all he needed to know about the truth of their affair.

  Let alone the carelessly slipped afterthought. He thought for a moment he had mistaken her.

  “You what? You want to marry him?” Sir Gilbert Morrison exclaimed, wondering if he had heard his scatterbrained daughter correctly.

  “Porthcurn? That damned Cornish pirate?” Bella waited for the merchant’s outburst to subside long enough to get a word in edgewise.

  “Colonel Porthcurn. One of Prince Rupert’s most trusted commanders,” she argued.

  “A sight more use to you than your previous prospects, I would have thought,” she added archly.

  Morrison flicked his wrist in agitation. She simply hadn’t thought this through. He peered around the door, spied Starling busy over his ledgers and papers in the scullery. They had emptied and locked up the headquarters near the quay to save paying the clerks.

  “I don’t care if he’s in charge of the King’s privy chamber! Don’t you read the news-sheets? Haven’t you seen what’s going on in front of your nose?”

  No, she’d been too busy…aye, well never mind what she’d been too busy with. It wasn’t rolling bandages for the infirmary, that was for sure.

  Porthcurn?

  What was the matter with the girl?

  “This damned New Model Army has beaten the King’s men from pillar to post,” he hissed. “They’ve been chased out of every garrison from here through to Exeter! And yet the best plan you can come up with is to hitch yourself up to another of Rupert’s bloody candlewasters! By Christ, I wonder where I went wrong with you girl!”

  Bella’s hazel eyes flared, her lips compressed into a white scar where her mouth had been.

  “You went wrong, imagining I could serve as the son you never had,” she declared coldly.

  Morrison clutched the back of the chair for support.

  “Well it’s true! Poor Jamie was never going to fit the bill you had in mind, whether in uniform or not.”

  The poor lad was back at Kilmersden Hall, glad enough to be picking his nose and herding pigs than herding his smallholders to slaughter.

  He’d gone to the wars and come back cracked in the head, even more useless than the day he’d gone away. With Sparrow. By Heaven, that had been more than two years ago.

  Bella took his silence for weakness. It was. She pounced.

  “You’ve dangled me in front of every colonel and captain since I was little more than a child. I will not be traded like one of your knocked-off commodities!” she grated.

  Knocked off? He’d been the one knocking her off, Morrison fumed.

  The merchant caught the flash of steel in that pop-eyed stare, knew better than to kick against that damned trapdoor.

  “I have looked out for you and what’s best for you,” he argued, avoiding her Medusa stare. “Since your poor splinter of a mother died,” he tried. Bella wasn’t having any of that.

  “Don’t you dare bring mother into it! You were keen enough to get me hitched up to Clavincale, and he turned out to be the foulest fraud of all! You loathed poor Hugo and…”

  “Poor Hugo? Poor Hugo is it? He’s barely cold and you’re all set to go marrying one of his bandit friends?” Morrison accused. Bella’s pale features drained, leaving her eyes glittering with furious intent.

  Morrison realised he might have gone too far.

  “He was a good enough lad. Saying I loathed him, that’s not true,” he modified, avoiding her stare.

  Morrison paced his crowded sitting room, the walls piled with crates and chests, barrels and bottles. The last few bits of furniture he hadn’t placed in storage in the keep had been corralled into the small alcove beside the fireplace.

  The temporary heart of his mighty trading empire.

  An empire of broken-backed chairs and the odd basket of squawking, scrawny hens.

  He took another cautious glance into the adjoining scullery. Starling resumed his scribbling in a futile parody of diligent labour.

  Morrison clicked the door closed.

  “You haven’t thought this through,” he stage whispered.

  “That’s where you are wrong. I have thought this through more carefully than you could possibly imagine, father dear,” she intoned. “Scipio’s the only man who doesn’t care about this,” she placed her fingertips beside the black and blue bruising disfiguring her face like the grey skulls impressed into the valleys of the moon.

  “Or this hellish hair cut? Or the fact they damn near tore my arm off!”

  “Telling was keen enough,” Morrison argued. “The Reverend was over you like a bloody flux! Anybody could see that,” he scoffed.

  “I warned you against mentioning him again,” Bella hissed. “I could have died, when you announced his infatuation to the whole world, to Rupert himself!

  ““I was desperate,” he growled. “I was trying to think ahead! In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re running out of friends quicker than Charles Stewart himself!”

  “Which is why I will marry Colonel Porthcurn,” she insisted. “He’ll stand by me, at the very least. To the end.”

  He ignored the melodramatic flourishes.

  “I am standing by you. Telling, for all his faults, would stand by you. Would have stood by you,” he corrected.

  Bella shook her head.

  “Over my dead body. The man’s a reptile. He has been weighing me up like a ripe cheese since Hugo took me back to the vicarage that winter-tide. I could feel his eyes on me, like a pair of fat slugs sliding over a piece of lettuce.” She shuddered at the memory.

  “Alright then,
have it your way. Telling wasn’t ideal. Bridegrooms don’t grow from seed after all. But Porthcurn’s prospects are no better than his. How long do you think he’ll survive? The New Model’s on the way, you don’t have to be a military genius to see that.” He took a deep breath, sensing he was scoring points now.

  “Porthcurn’s a soldier. I’ll grant you that. A proper soldier. He won’t run away with the rest of them.”

  Bella was nodding cautiously. “So he’ll be the one left holding the fort when this piss-drawers garrison’s chucked it in,” Morrison crowed, gesturing at the surrounding walls as if he could see through the brickwork.

  Bella’s silence spoke volumes. She’d worked that out for herself, at least.

  “Unless you were planning on a midnight flit, before the Roundheads get here?”

  “Like you’ve done every year since the war started,” his daughter accused. Morrison drew a breath.

  “I’ve made mistakes, aye. Trying to hold all this,” he raised his hands to encompass what was left of their dust-shrouded treasure house, “together for our future, for your future.”

  “Well it’s time you let me take a part in my future. For once.”

  “For once? Hah!” He noticed Bella’s eyes slide sideways. The door creaked. Starling coughed.

  Morrison twisted around, his long-suffering clerk dwarfed by the piratical Cornishman.

  “Sir Gilbert,” Porthcurn allowed. Morrison flushed, snatching up a roll of discarded papers as if he might shoo the colonel out of the scullery like some sashed and sabred rodent.

  “Ah, Colonel Porthcurn. Good of you to drop by,” he improvised. The colonel glanced about the crowded room, stacked from floor to chimney with the merchant’s disposables.

  Disposables? With half the town hungry and the other going down with the plague?

  “Concentrating your assets in order to facilitate your defence. An admirable military principle,” Porthcurn observed, dark lips curling from his teeth.

  Morrison pursed his lips, weighing up his options. Attack or defence, his position wasn’t promising.

  Porthcurn and Bella exchanged a glance. Morrison spotted his daughter raise an eyebrow.

  “That is, presuming you intended to stay at your post?” the Cornishman inquired, making his way about the snarled room lifting lids and tapping cases.

  “My post? You mistake my role sir. I am an honest merchant, a founding member of the Royal Westward Society of Oceanic Venturers, although you are correct to point out my principal base of operations has indeed been here in the west these last two years.”

  Porthcurn ignored the flummery.

  “To be specific, Bristol.”

  “Well yes. Good trading opportunities don’t grow from seed. Bristol has always been…”

  “Bristol is, and will remain, your principal base of operations.”

  Morrison risked a tight smile.

  “One of the many depots and storehouses I have established across the West,” he replied, his agile mind leaping one, two, three steps ahead.

  “His Highness Prince Rupert has instructed me to collect a full inventory of all war materials held in your manufactories and warehouses here and along the quay.”

  “Of course. I will have Starling draw up the necessary documentation and…”

  “And he wants you to deliver it, in person, at his headquarters.”

  Morrison cursed under his breath.

  “That can be arranged. We were just discussing our fortnightly rounds of our outlying collection points. You may recall…”

  “There will be more collection rounds. The enemy presses too closely to risk escort parties more than five miles from the gates. His highness has ordered all outlying posts and depots to be evacuated.”

  That was news to Morrison. But this was simple gamesmanship. They meant to keep him locked up in Bristol for the duration, that much was obvious.

  “And what of our property at Kilmersden Hall? That’s ten mile and more down the Wells road,” Morrison countered. Porthcurn shook his head.

  “The New Model Army is in Wells, in some strength apparently. We could not risk dispatching further troops simply to ensure your house is in order.”

  “Well we still hold Bath. I established some promising business connections during our late visit. I’m sure Rupert wouldn’t mind…”

  “You are to remain in Bristol, Sir,” Porthcurn added as an afterthought.

  Morrison frowned. Like that was it? He couldn’t say he was surprised. He hadn’t imagined Prince Rupert would have waved him off from the top of his tower.

  “From what I can see, all your goods and comestibles are right here. Where we can keep a weather eye on them.”

  Morrison raised his eyebrows. Indeed.

  “Indeed.” He smiled, glanced at Bella who had followed the exchange with barely concealed amusement.

  Indeed.

  “Indeed you are absolutely right. But my most valuable of valuables,” he nodded at Bella. “Is not safe here. Would it be,” he began “too much to ask you to identify new quarters for my daughter, at the keep? Where the garrison authorities can maintain proper watch over her.”

  Porthcurn straightened, astonished the merchant could turn from black knight to white rook in a blink. What was his game now, shoving the girl into his quarters?

  “A place might be found, for you and your household,” he agreed. Morrison clapped his hands in a grim parody of delight.

  “Capital! Do you hear that Bella my dear? Colonel Porthcurn is going to take care of all of us. I will tell Mary to collect Callum’s things together.” They looked at one another, the moment stretching.

  “I suggest we adjourn to the castle without further delay. I am to accompany his Highness Prince Rupert on an inspection tour later today.”

  Morrison’s busy mind was examining options and possibilities.

  Confined to a doomed garrison, watched and guarded. Well no matter. He would have to rethink his strategies. And Porthcurn, his principal jaoler? Well he would need to be distracted and diverted.

  He couldn’t very well watch the merchant and keep a weather eye out for Bella.

  And when his back was turned, Morrison would be off. By back gate or sally port. Over the newly raised turf walls.

  By sea if necessary. Half a dozen of Bristol’s merchant captains owed him favours.

  Sir Gilbert wasn’t intending to stick around for the storm that was coming.

  When the New Model Army marched up to set their siege lines about Bristol.

  By Bath, July 28, 1645

  Okey was a down to earth sort, hardly surprising considering he’d been a drayman before the war. With no lawn, no lace and no frills, he liked Sparrow and Sparrow liked him.

  He hadn’t been keen on the transfer at first. Some chancer from Hardress Waller’s fed up of stomping about the country and keen to hitch himself a ride with dragoons?

  But Okey had lost a clutch of officers at Naseby and experienced commanders were almost as hard to come by as common troopers.

  Different in the cavalry of course, Okey mused, glancing at the formidably armoured Colonel Nathaniel Rich. Minor gentry, used to giving orders.

  In truth the dragoon colonel had barely seen Sparrow since Naseby - he’d been ordered off on some errand for the headquarters. An errand which had seen him promoted from questionable captain to marginal major inside a month.

  Okey had been around long enough to know that sort of advancement didn’t happen without some heavy calibre support at headquarters. That interfering gnome Eagleton for one.

  But Okey wasn’t about to pick fights with the army staff. Eagleton had vouchsafed the transfer, and that would do for John Okey.

  And besides, Sparrow seemed a fairly steady sort. He’d apparently found time to marry the poor girl he’d left behind in Bristol, earning the forgiveness of his men, his colleagues and his superiors.

  And his mysterious trip to Bath had certainly paid dividends.

  �
��So. The garrison won’t fight,” Okey thought aloud, chewing his heavily calloused thumb. Workman’s paws rather than the elegantly tapered artist’s hands directing Parliamentary policies nearer London, Sparrow mused absently.

  They were gathered at the Flowerpot Inn in Chewton. Ten miles out from Wells, barely half a dozen from Bath.

  Colonel Rich was there with a few troops of Ironsides to beef up the horde of newly raised and veteran dragoons Okey had been assigned for the expedition.

  Well, the newcomers might come in handy. From a distance they looked like regular troops.

  Aye. From a distance.

  At least two hundred of them were fresh from the farm - the majority weeded out of the mob of clubmen back at Wells.

  They had issued them with the remounts that had been rejected by the New Model’s cavalrymen - handed over the nags and ragged ponies the quartermasters hadn’t thought fit for the frontline regiments.

  The canny country folk had made a pretty penny from the brisk trade, whether ragged-arsed militia or Cromwell’s favoured Ironsides.

  They had spent years hiding their livestock away as best they could from the marauding Royalists, but this lot paid in coin.

  Okey maintained a grudging respect for the hard-bitten farmers, grown wise to the ways of war. It was a revelation how many horses they had managed to hold on to, out in the wild fells above Wells.

  What with the war and all.

  How their sons and spare hands would make out in battle remained to be seen.

  *************************

  Sparrow had promoted his trusted men to take charge of the new drafts - Francy Snow to sergeant, Coucher and the rest taking charge of a squad. The dragoons were tickled to think the decision to throw in their lot with Sparrow had paid such handsome dividends within a month.

  Young Blunt and a bunch of his more belligerent mates had signed on for the lark. Rather than persuading them back to their homes with their tails between their legs their brief taste of battle in Wells had apparently whetted their appetite for war.