by Lesley Lodge
‘But why? And who is “we”?’
‘Women, of course. They’d kill the men. But we shall go, as a mass. To beg for food.’
‘From Fairfax?’
‘Yes. He must know that our town is still for Parliament. We have no part in any king’s fight. He must let us out of this Hell. Some bread, that’s all we’ll ask. For the children especially. So many… so many have died and die still for want of bread.’
Wayland thought a moment but he could not fault her logic. ‘I knew it was bad but this is…’ He was unable to find the words. ‘The children, yes, I see. But it’s too dangerous.’
‘They will die here. What is more dangerous than that?’
‘I… I don’t want you to go.’
‘I have to,’ she said, her voice bitter, ‘it’s simple. Yes, we know the King’s men have food. Maybe not much. Maybe not enough. But they still eat. And they refuse us any. Every scrap of food was taken from us and none has been given out for days now.’
Wayland knew then that she had no option but to make this attempt. He could see it was pointless to dissuade her whatever the danger was. His heart missed its dull beat as he wondered if he would ever see her again, if the Parliamentary forces did take in the women over on their side of the siege lines. He sensed, though, that it would be pointless to say anything of this. Instead, he hugged her close – and then she was gone.
Jonathan was lying, listless, propped up only by the doorframe. He looked at his father. Seeing such anguish, he raised himself up.
‘I’ll go with her,’ he said. ‘Children are going. I can look out for her.’
‘You’re a lad,’ said Alice, ‘so it won’t work.’
‘I’m small. I’ll mix in. Father, let me do this. I’ve been powerless all through this siege. I can look out for her. I’m not as starved as they are. I’m stronger. I can help.’
Wayland felt torn in two. He saw the logic in his son’s offer. He admired him for it. But then he would have both of them at risk.
Jonathan looked down, awaiting his father’s word. He picked at his sleeve.
‘Go then. But mind you keep your wits about you. And on no account bait the soldiers.’
Wayland walked out. He could not bear to think of it, let alone to say aught else. He slammed the door as he left the smithy.
Alice and Jonathan joined the gaggle of other women and children at the gate. They shuffled forward in sombre mood, out past the roughly hewn fortifications and towards the Parliamentary trenches. One of the women spoke: ‘Get ready to make some noise,’ she said, ‘we will need to make our plea. We must be heard as women lest they fire on us.’
They stumbled on, a ragged line of women, clothed in flapping skirts now grossly oversized for their skeletal bodies.
* * *
Wayland walked towards the gate he knew the women had used. He had not gone far, though, when three soldiers stepped out to block his way.
‘Go back, Smith,’ said one, ‘I doubt Sir Charles Lucas wants the enemy to see our side gawping at a gaggle of townswomen.’
Wayland felt the bile rise into his mouth, but he backed off without a word. That was when the noise started. It was far off but unmistakable. Women were howling and screaming. Men shouting. And then, after some minutes, came the sound of men laughing. A short silence followed. Then there was the clear sound of musket shots. Wayland wasn’t able to count them but he guessed there were fewer than twenty. He knew that, unlike the Royalist’s men, Fairfax would not be short of ammunition. There was nothing Wayland could do except pray that these were but warning shots.
His sense of frustration grew over the next few hours. The hours stretched into the night and still there was no news. Wayland couldn’t understand it. If the women had been granted food and shelter, why had there been shots? If they had not, why were they not back within the fortifications? It made no sense.
* * *
Wayland’s hours of waiting had turned into days before he heard anything of the women’s return. This time, no one stopped him leaving the smithy and setting out for the gate. At first he was convinced the news was wrong. He could hear nothing. He expected to hear crying, talk – something. Then he saw them. There were fewer of them than had set out. There was something odd, too, about their clothing. Some of the women were half naked. Others had clothes in tatters. They staggered and stumbled, heads down, through the gate. Every child even was silent.
Wayland was about to set off towards them when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Alun.
‘Think, man,’ said Alun, ‘you know, love is all very well but they need sustenance more than anyone has ever needed it.’
‘But…’ Wayland knew Alun was right but he had nothing, even back at the smithy, to give them.
‘We can try Roland,’ said Alun, ‘if anyone has anything to eat – anyone that’s not a King’s man, that is, it’ll be him. Bring them to the bakery. And fetch some blankets to cover Alice.’
Wayland stared at Alun, his brain slow to process his thoughts. He nodded.
‘And don’t go expected any account of what’s happened until they have eaten,’ Alun added.
Alun was proved right. Rowland managed to come up with some crusts of bread: scrapings from the baking pots and some tiny strips of what looked like it might be meat. There was water too. Alice and Jonathan tore into the food. Neither of them asked what it was. Wayland paced the small room while they ate. Alice spoke at last, ‘They gave us nothing. They stoned us.’
‘They shot at us. And…’ Jonathan stopped short, looking at Alice for guidance.
‘Their men came out from behind the fortifications. We thought… we thought they were coming to fetch us in. But oh, no. They came to humiliate us. They stripped many of the women. They got my shawl. Jonathan got me away then. And then… then they… well, they laughed at us.’
‘Bastards.’ said Alun, clenching his fists. ‘And they call themselves the army with God on their side.’
‘That’s not all,’ said Alice. ‘When we got back, Lucas had barred the gate against us. Us, his own townspeople. We had no choice but to sleep in the ditches and trenches.’
No one said anything. Jonathan used his last pinch of bread to mop up the dampness left by the meat.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘Father, you may not believe me. But I saw him. I swear it was him. He’s one of Fairfax’s men.’
‘Him?’ asked Wayland, but even as he asked the question he knew the answer. ‘The man who killed your mother?’
‘Yes. It was him. The missing ear. The voice. It was him. I know it was.’
36.
1648
‘Why? Father, why?’ Jonathan was shouting at Wayland now, ‘I’m no child. I know men do kill and forever they will. But it’s always for a reason – isn’t it? For King or for Parliament or for robbery or…’ He searched a moment for the right word, ‘For lust and so on. But why my mam? Why did he kill her? And why did he have to cut her?’
Jonathan collapsed. Wayland and Alun sat speechless. Neither man had any idea what to say or what to do. So both stayed silent. Days had passed but still Jonathan asked the same questions, questions neither man could answer.
Alun was the first to hear the shouts outside. He went out into the street to investigate. Everyone was looking up into the sky. It took him a moment to realise what they were seeing: kites. Kites were flying overhead, their white tails streaming and dancing beneath them. It wasn’t long before a couple of the King’s men appeared with muskets. Their leader took aim, fired and missed. His men positioned their muskets. ‘Idiots,’ muttered Alun to himself, ‘if they do hit it, they’ll destroy any message.’
The futile shooting went on for some time before a sudden lull in the wind brought one of the kites down. It landed near Alun and he rushed to it.
‘Stand back,’ one of the soldiers bel
lowed, ‘and step away or I’ll shoot you.’
Alun jumped back – but not before he had seen something of the message attached to the kite. He could barely read but he could see that the full wording included some triumphant text and obscene mockery. He recognized the word “defeat” and he memorized another word in the message: Preston. Alun had no idea where Preston was but he did know that this must be big news. He extricated himself discreetly from the crowd and went to report back to Wayland. He spelt out the word in the earth.
‘Preston,’ said Wayland. ‘must be a defeat for the King or they wouldn’t be so keen to tell us.’
‘Where’s Preston?’ Alun asked.
‘That I don’t know,’ said Wayland, ‘but it cannot be nearby or we would know it. Can you remember anything else?’
Alun thought hard. ‘Apart from the cursing, there was this: H–O–M–A–T–O–N or something like that.’
‘Hamilton? Hamilton is that name that the soldiers keep talking about. When they think no one is listening. Some commander for King Charles he must be – and he is the very man Lucas has been expecting to bring the relief army here.’
‘So, if this is true and not a ruse, that’s their whole hope of winning a way out of this siege gone.’
‘We shall know soon enough what Lucas and the others think. If there is truth in it, he must surely call for terms directly.’
Jonathan looked up now. ‘You mean, they will surrender?’
‘Aye, lad, though I doubt he’ll call it that in any of his speeches. But yes, we’re thinking negotiations will start. To get us out of here.’ Alun said.
Wayland was still thinking. ‘It’s more than that, I reckon,’ he said, ‘with Colchester lost, the King’s cause is surely done for forever. He has no other sizeable force, at least, none that I’ve ever heard about.’
News of the King’s army’s defeat at Preston soon travelled around Lucas’s men and it was caused much agitation among them. It was received almost with indifference in the town at large, though. Those citizens who had survived so far – and a great many of course had not – were listless, weak from hunger and utterly disillusioned by so many previous rumours of some possible end to the siege. Wayland did, however, hear from one of the soldiers that Lord Norwich himself had formally set in train some actual negotiations for surrender and it was widely expected by the Royalist forces that his proposed terms would be agreed.
On the other side of the city defences, however, the Parliamentary commander, Fairfax, saw things very differently. It was true that Fairfax had long prided himself that he conducted war not just bravely but also efficiently and fairly. But it was also true that he relied heavily on the rules of war. Ordinarily, in the terms for surrender in wartime those rules, written or unwritten, would include standard, separate guarantees for commanders, officer, men and citizens. As Fairfax saw things, though, at least some of those commanding the Royalist side had breached other rules. And for him those rules were crucial ones that also governed how men ought to conduct themselves. Fairfax was focused especially on Lucas, the man he considered most personally involved in actively directing the enemy’s military tactics. Only two years earlier, after an abortive rebellion that ended in defeat for him in Stow–on–the–Wold, Sir Charles Lucas had – as the very pre–condition for his release from captivity – then sworn a solemn oath never to bear arms against Parliament again.
The Royalist command as a whole was also gravely at fault, Fairfax considered, for having refused to yield the town as soon as all supplies had been so clearly cut off. That represented another violation of the usual laws and customs around war and siege. The siege had now lasted some eleven weeks: an unprecedented time in recent history. In short, Fairfax was of the firm belief that this prolongation of the siege was due solely to an utterly pointless stubbornness on the part of the Royalists. It had caused, there was no doubt about it, extreme and futile suffering within the town walls – but it had also brought a pointlessly long deployment of the Parliamentary army and many losses to his Fairfax’s own troops. That he could not forgive.
And so it was that a cold, rule–based logic began its mix with a hot simmering desire Fairfax had for revenge. This was to have the same kind of effect as has oil when poured on fire. The whole of Colchester’s besieged populace was soon to suffer these calamitous effects. Fairfax resolved first of all to add delay to the punishment he planned. He would need to make arrangements and to seek if possible some approval, formal or otherwise, from higher up. Thus, when the Royalist side’s messenger duly arrived, breathless from his short but hurried journey from Colchester’s town gate across to the Parliamentary fortifications, Fairfax made him wait a while. Opening the message back in his room, he saw that, as he had anticipated, Lord Norwich’s proposed terms closely reflected those of a traditional standard surrender. He ordered the messenger to return empty–handed. He asked his manservant for a long drink for himself and he began to compose his own terms. Engrossed and enflamed as he wrote, he no longer noticed even the sharp pain of gout in his leg.
37.
That the kites and messengers represented an apparent signal of an end to the siege was greeted with such an apathy revealed to Wayland the extent of the townspeople’s distress and disbelief. Those who were closest to starvation had long since let go of the hope of a quick end to the siege by way of the King’s Men actually winning after some miraculous relief by Royalist reinforcements. It seemed much more likely that it would need a matter of time, time until Lucas, Lisle and their ilk had been reduced to the same state of hunger, misery and caring for nothing, as was the lot of the lowest orders. Owing to the Royalists’ total control of the few remaining supplies, that had come close, but it had not quite happened yet. Instead it seemed to people that no matter how tough things became for ordinary folk, Lucas and Lisle and the other commanding gentry always had some reserve food stocks of their own. It was true that after the town’s women had returned in such desperation from the enemy’s front line, Lucas’s men had released a small ration of the officer’s grain for the townsfolk. But there had been nothing since. Many citizens, mostly women and children, had died of starvation and most of the remainder had now been driven to gnawing on tallow candles, on leather shoe uppers or even on bark. And so, while the people knew it to be true that the Parliamentary kites had skimmed over the fortifications, laden with written scraps of news of the complete destruction of the King’s forces at Preston, who could tell for sure if such news was actually true? Lies, exaggeration and politics were weapons of war more often than not in these days of turmoil. So, most of the townspeople, and indeed Wayland himself, were not, for the most part, entertaining any thoughts of an imminent end to their hunger and misery. No one knew for sure if the Royalist commanders believed the news and, if they did, whether their reaction might yet be to continue to hold out against Fairfax. Sheer fatigue and the constant pains that hunger brings had driven out all but the very last vestiges of hope for most people.
Wayland himself had for some time now ceased to receive even the occasional meagre handout from Lucas’s officers. Recently he and Alun would spend their evenings trying to extract the dried remnants of marrow from the few horse bones they could scavenge from odd corners of the main stables. On the occasions when he could smuggle a couple through to Alice they’d boil the bones up and drink the greasy water as a soup. It was true that Wayland had now heard it confirmed that negotiations were taking place and that Lord Norwich was proposing the terms under which he, Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle and Lord Capel would all sign to agree to a negotiated surrender. Unlike them, though, Wayland did suspect that Fairfax might reject those terms. And so, Wayland too remained listless in mood. Neither Alun nor Jonathan showed any energy either now.
During the previous weeks, Alun, mainly through his naturally cheery, jokey approach to things, had managed to befriend the soldier whose responsibility it still was to keep a
n eye on him. So on this particular morning in late August, the soldier brought Alun some flour. ‘We’re breaking out the very last of our supplies,’ he told Alun, ‘seeing as the siege must now end.’
‘They’ve allowed you to bring that to us then, them in command, have they?’
‘Not, ah, directly or as such,’ said the soldier, looking away, ‘but who is going to care when we’re done here and out of this godforsaken town?’
‘Well, my thanks to you,’ said Alun, ‘you have hope when no one else has then. But let’s have a look at what you have there.’
‘There’s this too.’ said the soldier, handing over a tiny packet.
‘With this stuff as well, I reckon I can make a couple of bread cakes or at least something we can eat.’ Alun said. He coaxed the remnants of the charcoal into to life, got some water and set to mixing. He picked up the mutton–fat candle he’d been forcing himself to gnaw on that morning and set it to melt for frying the mix. When it was done, the cakes looked more like greasy bricks than food, but the soldier happily took most of them away. Alun, Wayland and Jonathan feasted on the rest – for it did indeed seem a feast after so long with so little food. Wayland felt some little pleasure that at last some tiny amount of energy was coursing through his veins – but he could not know how crucial this little transaction with the soldier and this source of some energy would prove to be.
* * *
Lucas read Fairfax’s curt response to his offer of terms of surrender. It was a counter offer – and Fairfax had made it clear indeed that this was to be the only offer – and that it was a non–negotiable offer. The terms of surrender were brutal. They stated that:
•Lords and Gentlemen were all prisoners of mercy, that is, their fate would be entirely up to their Parliamentary captors and would not be known beforehand.
•The common soldiers were to be disarmed and could be issued with passes to return to their homes only after they had sworn an oath not to take up arms against Parliament again.