A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  There would be no doctors, midwives and lawyer in Oxford. There would be no marriage for the moment. The King had dissolved his Parliament and his army had gone to face the Scots, but that was not the news that had brought Sir George and Toby hastening back to Dorset. Parliament, the London Parliament, had decreed that the great food-bearing counties were to be scoured of Royalists, that London must be supplied with wheat this year, with beef, mutton, fruit and ale, and they had sent orders for their armies to concentrate and clear the west. One of the spies who swarmed on either side had sent word to the King, and his news was hard on Sir George. Lazen Castle was to be taken, the siege to begin at Easter, and Sir George and Toby had ridden desperately, bringing what reinforcements they could, so they could reach the castle before their enemies closed the ring.

  Sir George had followed Toby into the gallery, Colonel Washington coming after. Lady Margaret stood, dominating the room. “Campion, you must go!”

  “No!”

  “Yes! George! She can stay with Tallis in Oxford?”

  Sir George nodded. “She can. She might be safer even further away.”

  Campion shook her head. “No!”

  “You’ll not be going anywhere, Miss Campion.” Colonel Washington was looking through one of the wide windows. His face was grim. “Those laddies moved fast. Damned lobsters if you’ll excuse me, your Ladyship.”

  The villagers were streaming from Lazen, hurrying toward the castle, while beyond them, beyond the mill and the cottages, Campion saw the Roundhead troopers in Lazen’s fields. Lobsters, horsemen whose jointed armor, curiously resembling a lobster’s shell, covered their bodies, thighs and arms, followed their standard-bearer on the far side of Lazen’s stream. Sir George frowned at Colonel Washington.

  “You didn’t know they were close?”

  “I did not, Sir George. I’ve patrolled each day, but my belief is they’ve come from the forest land to the south. You could hide an army in there.”

  “From Werlatton?” Campion asked.

  “That direction, Miss Campion.” Washington smiled. He was a small man, yet now he seemed to grow in stature and confidence. He walked to the fireplace and stood beneath the proud, naked Diana. “They’ll find us a tougher nut to crack than they think. The lads are shaped well.” He spoke of the tenants and laborers of Lazen who had been drilled with musket and pike, swelling the garrison to a formidable size. “Aye. I think we can make them regret their temerity.”

  “We’ll make them regret more than that.” Lady Margaret stared with hatred at the growing mass of Parliamentary troops. “You’ll excuse me, Colonel.” She pushed open a window and shouted one word across the moat, startling two sentries. “Bastards!”

  “Margaret!” Sir George sounded shocked.

  Colonel Washington smiled, one finger brushing at his moustache. “I think they’ll be surprised. We’ll see the back of them by the end of May!”

  Toby moved to Campion’s side, his eyes gentle on her nervousness. “You heard the Colonel, my love. They’ll be gone by the end of May.”

  She held his arm, feeling the leather stiff and cold beneath her right hand. With her left she touched the seal and wondered if it was this talisman of gold that had brought the armored men to Lazen.

  War had come to Lazen. Her enemies had come. They were surrounding her, threatening her, and she sensed, even as she listened to the garrison preparing their defense, that the river of her days was gathering her again, plucking her from the calm waters and carrying her to unknown land. She held Toby’s arm as if it was her anchor.

  Lazen Castle was under siege.

  Sixteen

  The Roundheads were not gone by the end of May, but nor did they seem any nearer to capturing the castle. Their efforts, even to Campion’s untutored eye, seemed amateur and ineffective.

  The enemy concentrated their siege works to the north, building a great battery of earth and timber in which their main guns were placed and from which, one morning, they had opened fire with a guttural thunder that startled the rooks and sent them flapping and cawing in alarm. The round shot, that seemed to crash horrendously against the north wall, did remarkably little damage. Colonel Washington was far more concerned by the enemy’s mortar, a gun he described to Campion as a “vicious cooking pot,” which threw its missiles high into the air to crash down within the defenses. The mortar claimed the first victim in Lazen, crushing the skull of a kitchen-maid within the scullery. Colonel Washington sent a letter to the enemy, carried out of the castle under a flag of truce, that mockingly congratulated them on the death of the maid. He told them of the hour of her funeral and requested a cessation of the guns during the service. The truce was observed and the Roundhead guns did not fire again that day.

  The Roundheads were either camped to the north or else living in the deserted houses of the village, though their guardposts and patrols encircled the whole castle. They outnumbered the garrison by at least three to one, but it seemed to Campion that Colonel Washington treated his enemies with contempt, not caring about the odds. In the first week of May he led a sally against the main battery, his men debouching from the new walls by the gatehouse at dusk, charging the guns and throwing themselves into the Parliamentary works. Campion watched with Lady Margaret from the keep and she saw the Lazender banner planted on the enemy battery, heard the cheer of the Royalists, and even, clear in the twilight, the hammering as Washington’s men drove nails into the touch-holes of the enemy cannon. She saw the sparkle of musket fire in the falling darkness, watched the spread of smoke like winter fog, and listened to the war shout of the castle’s defenders: “King Charles! King Charles!”

  “Back! Back!” Colonel Washington, mounted on his horse, waved at his men. A last musket volley splintered light toward the enemy who tried to counterattack, and then the Royalists were leaping over the remains of the timber palisade that they had pulled down and were streaming back toward the castle. Campion could see Toby, his sword drawn, shepherding his own men away from the battery, and then it seemed that the whole northern sky was filled with sheet lightning, a great spread of red flame that lit the horizon, boiled smoke over the battery, and was followed, seconds later, by the huge thunder of the enemy’s powder magazine exploding. “King Charles! King Charles!”

  The enemy did not fire their guns again for ten days, their battery was rebuilt further back, and in the meantime they suffered a further reverse, this entirely of their own making. The moat at Lazen was fed by a spring that rose northeast of the castle, and the enemy damned the spring despite the fire from the sakers that Colonel Washington poured among the laboring soldiers who shovelled earth and carried stones to divert the water. Their success seemed to presage a parliamentary victory, for the water sank swiftly in the next three days. The moat drained at the southwestern corner and, by the fourth day, the northern branch of the moat that was normally thick with lily pads was nothing more than a ditch of stinking slime. It was still a formidable obstacle, but the thick mud would dry and Colonel Washington was forced to take defenders from the northern and western walls to guard the moat-banks. On the fifth day the fish in the main stretch of moat were flapping frantically, their water reduced to a shallow strip in the center of the littered mud, and that night the defenders dug pits in the lawn from which they could fire at an attack across the drained moat.

  Yet the water, diverted from its normal course, had seeped into the low ground at the foot of the northern hills where the enemy were building their new battery. Their own earthworks became waterlogged, the mortar sank through its plank base into sodden slime and the ready powder was ruined by damp. The new battery was a quagmire, useless for guns, and in desperation Lord Atheldene ordered the dam removed so that the water again flowed fast and clear through its underground conduit to the moat. The fish were freed from their shrinking death, the defenders breathed relief, and the ditch of slime was again filled with fresh water.

  Lord Atheldene was a courteous opponent. Informed by Colone
l Washington that the women and children of the castle were concentrated in the New House, he ordered his gunners to avoid it. A second battery, with just two guns, had been placed to the south, firing over the water meadows from the edge of the village, and denied the New House as a target they concentrated on the stable-yard. Horses were wounded and had to be put out of their misery. For two days the stench of blood hung about Lazen.

  The northern guns eventually broke down the old wall that connected the keep to the Old House and, two nights later, the Roundheads attacked the breach. Their shouts startled the air just before dawn, and Campion awoke to hear the sakers and murderers coughing their death. She pulled a robe over her nightgown and ran to the Old House to watch. Smoke shrouded the buildings and the kitchen garden into which the enemy came. She dimly saw the flash of swords and pike blades, listened to the cheers of the enemy as they swarmed through the breach, and then she understood why Colonel Washington had not been worried. He had expected the attack, wanted it even, because the enemy was now trapped in the walled enclosure of the garden. The defenders, receiving the signal they had waited for, attacked from the keep and the old kitchens. For the first time, Campion heard the clatter of pikemen fighting pikemen, and in the first gray light of dawn she saw the huge spiked poles being carried forward against the enemy. The cheers of triumph turned to alarm, to screams, and she bit her lip as she watched the leather-jacketed defenders going grimly forward, pikes levelled, their wickedly long spikes already reddened by blood. Muskets sparked, making a continuous crackling, and then the Roundheads were pushed back and scrambling for safety. Campion saw the prisoners being taken, some horribly wounded, and she breathed relief. She was safe again.

  The wounded were treated in the New House and Campion became used to the horrid mutilations, to helping the doctor amputate legs or arms, to sitting beside the dying as they tried to endure the pain bravely. She sat with defenders who died, with the captured enemy, and she would read psalms to the Puritans and pray with them in the cruel, small hours when dawn seemed an eternity away.

  The fighting was not constant. Some days seemed calm, punctuated only by fitful gunfire, and there were constant courtesies in the middle of battle. Prisoners were exchanged, the wounded restored to their comrades, and Lord Atheldene sent weekly news to Sir George and Lady Margaret. The news-sheets were all parliamentarian, and thus unlikely to print news that might cheer the defenders, but Sir George was ready to believe much of what they said. They spoke of the King being harried in the north, of the Scots coming slowly south, and they trumpeted the tidings when an isolated house or castle, much like Lazen, was taken by the rebel forces. Yet not even the parliamentary news-sheets could demonstrate a pattern of victory. The war seemed hesitant, patchy, and neither side had won the great victory that could tip the balance. Lord Atheldene sent more than news. Once he sent a great ham studded with cloves, a barrel of wine and a letter regretting that he should be fighting old friends and neighbors. He offered safe conduct to the women trapped in Lazen, even suggesting that Lady Margaret and her retinue would be welcomed by his own wife, but Lady Margaret refused the offer. “This is my house. I have no intention of going to Harry’s house. It’s drafty and there are young children screaming everywhere.” She had already composed her epitaph to be carved on a plaque to be erected in Lazen’s shot-battered church. “She Dyed in the Defense of Her Owne House, Foullie Besieged bye Traitors.” She looked at Campion. “You must leave, child.”

  Campion shook her head. “Not without you, Lady Margaret.”

  Campion’s fear of her enemies had grown less. So long as Lord Atheldene commanded the besiegers, she did not fear. He was a man, as Sir George said, of honor and decency who would ensure that the women of Lazen Castle would be spared the horrors of war. Even when Samuel Scammell joined the enemy, Campion being made aware of his presence by a wounded prisoner, she did not fear. Scammell could have no power over Lord Atheldene.

  She looked for Scammell, searching the enemy lines with a clumsy telescope that Lady Margaret had mounted on the roof of the keep. Toby was with her, his red hair stirred by the wind. “Perhaps he’s not here.”

  “I can’t imagine him as a soldier.” She turned the great tube on its iron tripod to face the village. The image wavered. She could see the earthwork that the enemy had dug across the track that led to the castle, she could see soldiers sitting in the sunlight, their helmets off, eating bread and cheese. A chicken pecked in the village street. “Ah!” She began to laugh. “I’ve found him!”

  “Let me see. Let me see.”

  “Wait!”

  She had half thought that the sight of Scammell would make her afraid, but instead she found him laughable. He had appeared at a house door, blinking in the spring sunlight, and he was scratching his bottom beneath an ill-fitting leather jerkin. He looked lost, out of his depth, and it was impossible to see him as an enemy to be feared.

  Toby, who had hardly glimpsed Scammell on the night of the fire in London, stared at his enemy. “What’s the matter with him? Has he got the pox?”

  “He’s always scratching himself.”

  Toby, grinned. “Captain Scammell, Warrior of the Lord. How could you possibly marry him instead of me?”

  She punched him on the arm, moving the telescope, and she waited as Toby re-aligned the tube. He steadied the image. “My God! He’s got his own bodyguard.”

  “Let me see.”

  Campion squinted through the eyepiece, stooping slightly, and Toby heard a hiss of breath from her. “What is it?”

  “It can’t be!” Her amusement had gone. “It can’t be!”

  “What?”

  “It’s Ebenezer! He looks so different. And the Reverend Hervey.”

  Toby took over the glass. “Which one’s Ebenezer?”

  “Black hair.”

  Toby saw a slight, tallish young man who stood just apart from Scammell. He was dressed entirely in black, even his elegant high boots were of black leather, and Toby could see a breastplate that had been lacquered the same color. He limped as he moved, but there was a strange dignity to his movements. The third man, the Reverend Hervey, his sandy hair falling over his thin face, talked urgently to Scammell.

  “I’m frightened, Toby.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve come for me.”

  “Nonsense.” He straightened up. “Atheldene’s in command.” He smiled at her. “They probably don’t even know you’re here.” He laughed, trying to cheer her up. “It’s natural that they’ve come. This is the closest Royalist house to Werlatton. Don’t worry. James and I will look after you.”

  He spoke confidently. James was Toby’s servant, a huge young man who was the son of Lazen’s blacksmith and had inherited his father’s great muscles and easy strength. James Wright had grown up with Toby. They had learned to hunt game in the woods together and to poach neighbor’s fish together, and now they fought in the war together. Toby had often spoken of James’s prowess with a woodman’s axe carried against the Roundheads.

  Yet she did worry and, to calm her, Toby offered a purse of five pounds to any man who could kill Samuel Scammell. The target was pointed out to gunners and musketeers, so that Brother Scammell, every time he appeared in the enemy lines, was pursued by musket balls as though they were hornets. Men fell to his left, to his right, yet somehow he survived. He took comfort from Psalm 91: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee,” yet even so, he was fearful of his hours of duty and he wondered whether Campion was somehow directing the storm of musket fire that hummed and whirred about his head.

  On June 11 the gatehouse fell. Its old stones were undermined by the enemy gunfire and it collapsed, sliding in dust and noise to make a heap of stone under which ten defenders were buried. The ring became tighter, the morale of the defenders lower, for though they were resisting the enemy’s fumbling attacks, the enemy would not give up and go away. There was food within the ca
stle still and plenty of water, but thirty men had died, as many were lying in stinking, suppurating pain, and boredom gnawed at the people trapped by the siege. The guns still fired, making inroads now on the Old House, opening its northern rooms to the spring rain and the fire of the enemy.

  Sir George, seeing the path by which the enemy would come into the castle and understanding that the simmering war in the north would mean no relief from the King’s army, wrote to Atheldene. He wrote despite the protest of his wife, and his letter requested the safe conduct that had been offered in May for the ladies of Lazen Castle. They would go, Sir George said, with Lord Atheldene’s permission and protection, to Oxford.

  The guns stopped as the messenger rode from the castle, a white pennon attached to his sword blade. The letter seemed an admission of defeat to the garrison, a defeat brought about not by the enemy’s superior fighting ability, but by the gnawing, endless attrition of the big guns. Campion, unhappily collecting clothes to be packed in a great leather travelling trunk, listened to the horses being harnessed to the coaches that would carry her, Lady Margaret, Caroline and their maids away. Colonel Washington agreed with Sir George that Lord Atheldene’s permission would be readily forthcoming.

  The reply came in two hours. Lord Atheldene, it said, had left that morning, summoned to London, there to face charges that he had “delivered comforte to oure enemies in Lazen Castle.” The Parliamentarian forces were now under the command of Colonel Fuller, the author of the letter, who claimed to have no knowledge of any safe conduct being offered by Lord Atheldene.

  “Fuller!” Colonel Washington frowned. “I know of Fuller.”

  “Who is he?” Sir George asked.

  “One of these new men, Sir George.” Colonel Washington stroked his moustache. “A ranting Puritan, if you’ll forgive me. He was a cobbler in Bedford and now he’s called a colonel.”

  “Is he honorable?”