by Lesley Lodge
The bakery had a large sink. The water in it was dark but clear. Wayland seized Nehemiah by his long, lank hair, marched him across to the sink and plunged him face down into the water, pushing his head down until it hit bottom. Then he pulled him up again and shook the head, as a dog shakes a rat. He wrenched him up bodily, jerking the man’s face round roughly to face him. Nehemiah heaved and coughed. Water poured off him, dirty white globules of bread flour clung to his face.
‘Wait.’ the man gasped. ‘Not water. I will tell you anything.’
‘And why not water? I doubt you cared one jot when my Rebecca begged against the water.’
‘I killed them, it’s true.’
‘You go for the weak, the vulnerable. What sort of pathetic man are you?’
‘No…’
‘No what?’
‘No, not the weak. The unguarded. I like…’ Nehemiah’s face twisted into a sneer. He had lost some of his fear. ‘You asked so I’ll say it,’ he continued, ‘I need to take time. I like them with a bit of fight. At the beginning. So that I can see them change. See them realize their guilt.’
‘Guilt? What guilt?’ Wayland, beside himself, was spluttering now. It seemed to him that Nehemiah was switching between two forms like a shape shifter: one a cowardly wretch and the other an arrogant bully.
‘Whoredom. Bitch dogs with lust.’ he said, the bully in him in the ascendant again.
Wayland cracked him across the face with his fist. The change was instant.
‘Stop, don’t. Maybe like you say your wife was innocent but…’
‘Maybe? What do you mean maybe? And innocent of what?’ asked Wayland.
‘The others, they were whores. The Bible…’
‘I’ve no time for your bible reading or your warped morality. And that poor boy? The one you mutilated? Was that just before you crossed my path back then? What was it in that mixed up hell of your mind that he was guilty of?’
With each word Wayland shook Nehemiah until his teeth rattled and a gurgling sound came from his throat.
‘I, I thought,’ he stammered, ‘I thought he was a witness, your boy that saw…’
Wayland realised then that Nehemiah must have been hoping to kill Jonathan when he killed the boy. And he, Wayland, had allowed this man into his home. He stared at Nehemiah, speechless. He found that somehow the heat of his fury had drained away, but a steely calm had filled its place instead. Slowly but steadily he pushed Nehemiah down into the sink again. He held on longer this time and lifted him only little by little.
‘We can’t, we can’t kill him, Father, we can’t do that.’ Jonathan’s voice was weak but his distress was clear.
Wayland paused but he didn’t turn round. As the water stilled though, its floury suds now gone, Wayland suddenly saw himself, clearly mirrored, in the sink. His face was distorted – horribly so – with hate. Still holding Nehemiah’s hair, he froze. He didn’t like what he saw. Only a minute ago, all he could think of was killing. He had lusted for it these twelve months past – and, he knew, he had wholly relished breathing in this man’s fear. Now, a slow numb horror came over him. What had he become, to carry out such a killing in front of his son? And at what risk would it be to the boy if they must answer to Fairfax for such a death?
Wayland’s arms dropped slowly. Nehemiah shuffled away. There was a pungent smell of urine and a yellowy trail began to puddle behind him. There was a groan from Alun and Wayland saw that he was conscious again, opening his mouth only to shut it again. Wayland thought though that he seemed to be agreeing with Jonathan.
‘No, lad, I… I suppose we should not.’
‘I thought… I thought you were going to kill him.’
Wayland flushed darkly and stared down at the stone floor. Minutes passed. ‘It is a shame we can’t, though,’ he said finally, his mood stabilising. He looked at Nehemiah. ‘You!’ he spat, ‘All this time I’ve thought of you, not knowing you. I saw you as some kind of evil monster, a massive, threatening force. But now I see you quite properly. You’re sick. You’re some kind of a perversion of a being. But most of all, you are a pathetic shadow of a man. You’re not even worth the effort of killing.’
The others turned too, to look at Nehemiah. With his skinny body seeming to droop, snot dripping from his nose and the wet patch spreading across his breeches he did indeed look wretched. The searing from the iron had left a clear and vivid brand on his face, alongside his nose. Wayland realized that it was Sir Charles Lucas’s own branding iron that he had used. He must have wielded it at an angle though, for the “L” had come out more like a “V”.
‘For all to see,’ said Alun, ‘now you have the V. The V for the villain that you are.’
Wayland thought a moment. ‘And V for vengeance,’ he said, ‘my vengeance. At last. And for as long as you may live.’
Nehemiah stared at them; he was only slowly beginning to comprehend as he felt his cheek and his fingers carefully traced the letter there. The depth of the mark told him it really would be permanent. He turned to leave – and then he fled. Jonathan called out after him. ‘People will see that V and they will think Vagrant,’ he said, ‘you’ll be chased out from every place, be it village –’ he stressed the V in “village” ‘– or town.’ He laughed, a harsh laugh, but a laugh nevertheless.
Nehemiah stumbled as he ran. They watched him stagger along the street.
‘You’ll never outrun that mark!’ Jonathan called out after him.
Wayland turned his attention to the injuries of his companions. He took an old jerkin Alun had left slung over a table, tore it quickly into strips and bandaged their wounds. Alun’s head wound looked the most serious injury, but the bleeding had slowed and Wayland remembered how head wounds sometimes produced more blood than lasting injury. He saw with relief that Jonathan’s injuries were only superficial, but he didn’t feel any better about them until he had them covered over. He’d barely finished his administrations when he realized that the hullabaloo of the invading chaos was getting louder, nearer to the bakery.
40.
Events moved swiftly over the next twenty–four hours. Fairfax’s officers soon began asserting order and control over their troops. All the besieged men in Colchester were rounded up, separated from the women and then further divided according to whether they were civilian or military. Both Jonathan and Alun were readily acknowledged by Fairfax‘s men to be civilians – Jonathan because of his age and Alun, initially because of his appearance though the clinching factor was his throaty cough and floury phlegm, the clear signs of baker’s lungs. Wayland they suspected at first, until he showed them his smithy tools and explained the circumstances of his forced labour for the King’s side.
The morning after the siege had broken began very differently from the mornings of the previous eleven weeks. The most noticeable difference was the lack of sound. There was no firing, no bombardment or restoration of the ramparts, just the purposeful hum of orders being passed on and carried out. Wayland soon learnt that the King’s foot soldiers had been ordered to pile up their weapons and to line themselves up near the East Gate. The few surviving horses were to be gathered up and taken to St Mary’s churchyard, together with all the saddles and bridles. Since there was, of course, a great imbalance in these numbers a small party had been ordered to assist in transporting the tack that had belonged to the many now dead horses. One of Fairfax’s men ordered Wayland to help in this. Wayland guessed there were only a little over a hundred horses left alive. They were all cavalry horses; not a single civilian horse had escaped the terrible hunger of the town’s civilian population. Wayland reflected that at least his own horses had not suffered that fate. These surviving horses made a pathetic picture: their heads hung down, ribs thrusting out, the girths hanging loose under their saddles. It took Wayland and the other men many trips to take so many now redundant saddles over to the collection point and like most
of his group, Wayland quickly felt feeble from so much effort after the privations of the siege. Finally, though, it was done and even the Parliamentary soldier overseeing the task looked relieved.
Wayland had hoped that they would be free to return home straightaway but it soon became clear that lengthy discussions were under way concerning the separate fates of the King’s officers and commanders and the King’s lower ranking men. Until these discussions were concluded there would be little opportunity for him to press their own case. Royalist tactics and in particular their refusals of Fairfax’s earlier terms of surrender had effectively left both men and officers totally at the mercy of the Parliamentary side – and Fairfax’s blood was up. Rumours of imminent summary executions abounded. Meanwhile, the main preoccupation of the townspeople, over and about resisting any further looting, was of course for food. A train of mules, laden with foodstuffs, followed surprisingly quickly after the siege’s end and everyone who could get near enough was final able to eat. Wayland cautioned his little group, including now Alice, against eating too much at first.
Wayland’s next step was to seek some more lasting treatment for the wounds on both Jonathan and Alun. At Alice’s own suggestion she approached the women in the Parliamentary camp who had charge of bandages and the like for their men. She traded some of her remaining store of woven cloth for a small supply of ointments and some clean–looking bandages. As soon as she had changed their dressings they discussed together how best to raise with their new masters the question of leaving Colchester. The town’s original blacksmith had reappeared, and Wayland thought it politic to leave the smithy to him, so they crowded round in the bakery. Rowland was busy there, firing up his furnace and pounding the new supplies of flour into a great mixing sink. Wayland’s first suggestion was that as the man less likely to be of any interest or use to the army Alun should be the one to seek official permission at the earliest opportunity for himself and Wayland to leave Colchester and return home to their own part of the county. Then Alice spoke. She said she was fearful that trade in Colchester, more specifically the wool trade which had, anyway, provided her with only a tenuous livelihood before the siege, would take a while to pick up again – if it ever did. With her home damaged and looted of most of its few contents, she had little else to keep her in the town. Wayland considered whether his blacksmithing back in the village could sustain all three of them – if only they could return there. And if she would want to join him. He thought it might. So he made her the offer of a home. Alice looked first to Wayland and then to Jonathan. The boy smiled his approval and she accepted, knowing that they would live as man and wife, whether married in church or not. They agreed that if they could secure a permit to leave the three of them should travel closely together. Wayland and Alice kissed on the deal. Alun let out a low, lewd whistle.
Alice tried to pull Jonathan into a three–way embrace but both Wayland and the boy shrugged her arms away.
‘Love birds! Disgusting, don’t you reckon?’ Rowland muttered, catching Alun’s eye. ‘I’ll be well rid of the lot of you. So much so that I have a plan to help you.’
‘You do? But what influence can you have? You’re just a baker. I cannot but doubt you have connections.’ Wayland, disbelieving and slumped on a stool, was fast becoming despondent after the rush of so many emotions and realizing his new responsibilities. Alun, however, was beginning to recover his usual buoyant mood. ‘Just a baker? Did I hear you aright? And I thought we had the relationship friends have. Some respect, please!’
‘Come,’ Rowland said to Alun, indicating the street with a nod of his head, ‘let us leave this man – this just a smith – and see what we lowly bakers can achieve.’
Some two hours passed. For Wayland and Alice these were long and mostly silent hours. They could hear a distant buzz from the street as gossip and rumour circulated concerning the fate of Lucas and his fellow commanders. Wayland wasn’t interested in them. His own view was that Lucas had judged matters badly with his persistent and unrealistic expectations of reinforcements and he regarded the man with the weary annoyance a servant has for a master whose nature steers him to mistake. Most of all, Wayland simply wished himself home. At last Alun returned, alone but triumphant. He waved at Wayland with four passes to leave Colchester in his hand.
‘They have the seals of authority an’ all,’ he said, ‘but I’m not about to share with you, a mere smith, the secret of my success. However, you shall have the headache of determining how we shall travel home, with no horses.’
Wayland didn’t trouble himself to reply but he had of course been thinking about that. He began now a quick assessment of the few assets they still had between them. He himself possessed some money left from the brief period very early on during the siege when Lucas had ordered for him to be paid for his blacksmithing duties. Money had lost its value in the town, of course, during the past few weeks but its recovery on the siege’s ending was instant. He doubted though that it was enough to buy three horses, but he set out to enquire anyway. There were none to be bought nearby. So next he checked their footwear and asked Alice if she would be able to manage a few rough repairs to their boots where needed. As soon as she had done that, they set off, on foot, trusting to God or Fortune to help them. While they were relieved to leave the town at last they were all were somewhat daunted at the thought of such a long walk. Still, as Wayland reminded them, the King’s infantry had managed a much longer walk in the other direction to reach Colchester.
As they trudged along the road south, they passed first a long, straggly line of prisoners. They recognized a few of the King’s foot soldiers. Most of them had been partly stripped; many were bruised or worse. All of them held their heads down as they shuffled along roped together. In sharp contrast their captors and guards, the lower ranks of Fairfax’s “model” army, laughed and joked, aiming a kick at their captives whenever they ran out of conversation.
‘Where will they be taking them, Father?’ Jonathan asked.
‘I heard some talk that they’re being sent to the place they talk of as the New World,’ Wayland replied, ‘they’ll be set to work there for some period. Then they will be allowed to return.’
‘Not that I’ve ever heard of one who did return,’ Alun commented, ‘and not that I care especially what becomes of them.’
‘But…’ Jonathan said, a frown creasing his forehead, ‘I thought the terms of surrender said to allow them to return home?’
Wayland thought for a moment. ‘The thing is, I think, son, that those in command often find a way to vary matters – and always they do so in their own favour. You’ll probably find they’ll say later that they did not hear these men swear not to bear arms against the Parliament ever again. Or maybe they have judged them guilty of some other crime than soldiering: theft, treachery or the like.’
‘Or being poor,’ added Alun.
‘Being poor? But how can that count as a crime?’ Jonathan asked, puzzled.
Wayland looked at Alun, hoping he would come up with an answer. Just then, however, Jonathan reached over and grabbed Wayland’s arm. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘look who it is.’
It was Nehemiah. Unlike the others, he was attached to a burly soldier by a chain rather than a rope.
‘But he was one of Fairfax’s own men, wasn’t he?’ Jonathan whispered.
Alun signaled to him to wait until they were well past Nehemiah. ‘I reckon I know what did it,’ he said, ‘it was the ‘V’ you branded him with. I said it would serve him ill. Likely Fairfax’s men took more notice of that than the man’s own rantings of innocence.’
Wayland thought about that. He was surprised to discover that it nether neither angered nor pleased him. He just didn’t care. He did think, though, that Fate had granted some small token of justice there: the symmetry of the brand mark that ran along Nehemiah’s nose, like the slashes on the women of Naseby. Alun, walking alongside him, seemed to guess his
thoughts for he looked at Wayland. ‘A child murderer,’ he said, ‘I for one would wish him some worse death.’
They were some yards away, past Nehemiah when they heard shouting. Wayland turned round in time to see Nehemiah make a break for it. He must have overpowered his guard and ripped the chain’s end from him because now he was lashing the poor man round the head with it. Wayland guessed he’d used the element of surprise coming from one of his sudden mood shifts, from defeated felon to determined murderer. Nehemiah then ran off, toward the London road, zigzagging his way. Fairfax’s men shouted after him but only one man was quick enough to take up his musket and fire. That one musket ball was sufficient. It dropped Nehemiah to the ground. His body shuddered once and then was still.
‘I told you vengeance belongs to God,’ Alun said. Wayland said nothing but he did think to himself that perhaps it would be fairer to acknowledge that he had helped the Lord some in that venture.
41.
In fairness, Fairfax’s thirst for revenge had only begun far more recently than Wayland’s. It was – or so he told himself – not so much an emotion but the logical and balanced response to the events of the siege. He wanted to believe himself free of passion and all other unruly feelings. He pursued it, however, with just as much stubborn determination as Wayland had devoted to his own pursuit of revenge. The way Fairfax saw things, the King’s commanders in Colchester were traitors who had in addition caused the brutal and needless suffering of the town’s citizens by causing the siege to drag on for so long. The losses on his own side – well over five hundred of Parliament’s besieging army had been killed or died during the siege – added considerably to his sense of grievance. As an experienced military commander he expected to lose men in battle. That’s what happened in war. It was to be accepted. But this siege should not have taken the path it did, with so much pointless fighting. So now it was largely down to him to take the winning side’s decisions. Thinking it through, considering what retribution to take and how to take it, Fairfax knew that the Lords Capel, Loughborough and Norwich were beyond his reach: he could advise but only Parliament itself could rule on the fates of men of such elevated rank. But that was all right. He knew too that Lucas – and to an extent, albeit lesser, Lisle – had in practice been the real strategists behind the key decisions anyway. And he should have a free hand in deciding their fate. He would need to follow the correct procedure though. Quickly, he set up a council of war in lieu of a military court. This body would be charged with deciding forthwith the fate of four of his key prisoners: Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, Colonel Farre and Sir Bernard Gascoigne. They had surrendered, as he’d ordered, and were currently held in the town’s chief inn except, that is, for Farre who was reported to be hiding out somewhere. Fairfax liked the irony of this inn’s name. He hoped his captives would feel it too, less comfortably. The inn’s name was The King’s Head. The charge, he announced, was to be no less than that of High Treason.