by Ann Swinfen
Her mind needed something else to keep it occupied. She found paper and ink and wax on the writing table, and trimmed a quill from one of the feathers thrust into an old pewter pot which had lost its handle. She lit the candle stump under the small burner in which the sealing wax was melted, and sat chewing the end of the quill and staring at the paper.
‘Do you write to John?’ asked Bridget.
‘I can’t be sure where he is,’ said Anne. ‘I suppose I could direct it to the King’s Head, or to St Ann’s Lane, but they may have taken him somewhere else altogether. I can’t understand why he’s not contrived to send me any word at all.’
She got up and paced about the room, thumping at cushions and straightening a shelf of books, before sitting down before her piece of paper again and sighing.
‘I think I’ll write to Samuel Gott. He was the only one of John’s closest friends who wasn’t imprisoned, although he was shut out of Parliament by Cromwell’s armed men. I’ll direct it to his lodgings in Westminster, but if he is gone down into the country, his servants will forward it to him. Surely he’ll know what’s afoot, and will send me word.’
‘Ask him to send word even if he doesn’t know what has happened,’ said Bridget. ‘Then at least you’ll know that your letter hasn’t miscarried.’
‘Well thought of,’ said Anne, dipping her pen at last in the ink.
Most Hon’rd & Deare Freind,
Haveing come at last to Swinfen & having noe word of my deare husband I write to yu to knoe any word yu may send me of him . . .
Chapter Nineteen
The netted fragments of sky were greying towards dawn as John crawled from the tangled embrace of the hazel thicket. He squatted a moment on the floor of the wood, dusting the gold catkin dust from his clothes and taking his bearings. Over to the left, a thin wash of pink was seeping into the dull overhang of cloud, so he must be facing south, opposite the direction he sought. The cart and its army escort might be making north, but that way his own path also lay. There was nothing for him now in the south, in London or Westminster. He must withdraw, like a canny creature of the wild, to his lair, northwards into Staffordshire. He could find friends and allies there, or at the very least lie hidden on his own lands.
He turned around, so the paler sky lay on his right hand, and began to make his way cautiously north through the trees. However he might try to move silently, his passage was marked by the snapping of branches beneath his feet. Thick tangles of brier and bramble snagged his clothes as he passed, so he must continually stop and disentangle himself from their vicious thorns. Every time he stopped, he strained to hear any sound of men in the wood. Birds swooped and sang overhead, a few early butterflies, braving the late lingering winter, fanned their wings amongst the banks of nettles, and from time to time he heard the brush of an animal’s body in the undergrowth, but nothing as heavy as a man. The first growth of the year, which appears before winter is gone, was breaking out amongst the layer of scrubby bushes and young trees which reached to breast height, and they held a sodden burden of the heavy rains and melting snow. Before he had been walking half an hour his clothes, his boots and his bundle were all soaking. Overhead the great branches of ancient trees cut off most of the light.
The sun was well up by the time he reached the far edge of the wood. Within the shelter of the last trees he paused to assess the ground ahead. There was no sign of the road along which they had been travelling last night. No farm or cottage lay within sight on the thin, bare ground which stretched ahead. It seemed safe enough. He stepped out into the open cautiously, fearing some shout or the sound of Tize’s musket, but none came.
For the rest of the day he travelled across the upland, but his progress was not as easy as he had hoped. There were frequent patches of boggy ground, too treacherous to cross, so that over and over again he had to make detours far to east or west before he could resume his northward path. At last, as the little sun that could be seen behind gathering clouds declined towards the west, he began to look out for some shelter where he could spend the night. Without the direction of the sun to guide him, he would go astray after dusk, and the sky was too obscured for the stars to show the way once night had fallen.
Over towards the right, he noticed a thin wisp of smoke rising from a hollow where the land fell away. Where there was human habitation there might be food and help, but there might also be danger. As he neared the cottage he saw that it was a sad wreck of a place, with a few rows of what might be beans when they sprouted, and two thin chickens huddled in the unmelted snow below the wall. He was debating whether to pass by or ask for help when an old crone came out of the door. She was bent almost double with the deformities of age, and one white-walled eye showed that she was blind on her left side. The door hung open on the interior and revealed a floor that was no more than a continuation of the beaten earth of the yard. A pile of straw and rags made the bed place, and over the pitiful fire hung a dirty, rusty pot. There was little enough smell of cooking, but even so, John felt his mouth, parched and dry, begin to water.
The old woman suddenly caught sight of him and stumbled back, clutching at her throat. John spread out his hands before him placatingly.
‘Fear not, goodwife, I mean you no harm.’
She stood staring at him, her toothless mouth hanging open.
‘I beg of you, let me buy some dinner.’
Slowly, so as not to frighten her, he drew a silver groat out of his pocket and held it up. Her glance went from his face to the coin and back, and a certain calculating light seemed to enter her one eye.
‘Food?’ he asked again.
She shook her head, cupping her hand behind her ear and miming deafness. John pretended to scoop food into his mouth, then rubbed his stomach. The old woman held out her hand for the money, but John drew nearer, stepping past her into the hut. It smelled foully of age and decay, but there was something cooking in the pot. If the woman intended to eat it herself, it would not poison him, however revolting it might be. She dipped out a bowl of the mess—soup or stew—thin and watery, but hot. She held one hand out with the bowl and with the other reached for the money. John dropped the coin into her hand and tipped the bowl to his lips. It tasted of very little. Nameless roots bumped against his lips, and he scooped out with his fingers a single lump of greyish meat, run through with gristle and shrouded in yellow fat.
‘I thank you, goodwife,’ said John, wiping his greasy mouth on the back of his hand. He set the rough earthenware bowl on the ground beside the fire. ‘Can you tell me what place this is?’
The woman stared at him, her jaw still hanging slackly, but that look of greed agleam in her eyes. She made no response. John shrugged, took up his bundle, and ducked out through the low doorway. He resumed his way northwards and, although he did not look round, he felt the woman watching him until he was out of sight.
That night he slept badly under the untidy remains of what had once been a well-kept hedge and when he resumed his journey the next morning he soon lit upon a rough track, not big enough for a road leading to a town or village, but one which bore the marks of occasional hoofs and cart wheels, and not too long since. He went warily, alert for any sound of heavier traffic or any sign this might be a route the soldiers would take, for despite a day’s hard walking he had covered little distance and could hardly be out of their reach yet.
In the late afternoon he saw ahead of him a farmhouse, small but trimly kept, with three or four cattle in a meadow, where patches of grass showed through the lingering snow, and a pen where a sow lay, great-bellied with an imminent litter. He had come upon it suddenly around a bend in the track, and before he could dodge out of sight a woman in the yard, gathering her spread washing from the bushes, glanced up and saw him. At first she looked frightened, and called out to someone inside, then as John came limping up, somewhat footsore and clearly alone, she smiled at him.
‘Good day, traveller,’ she said.
‘Good day to the mistres
s of the house,’ said John, doffing his hat to her.
She was a buxom woman of about his own age, who stood sturdily with her feet apart, eyeing him appraisingly. Behind her, a man came out of the house and stopped. His look was more reserved. Perhaps ten years or more older than the woman, and lean, with eyes that shifted and never seemed both to look quite in the same direction. He wore a buff coat like the Parliamentary army, but had about him no appearance of a soldier. Nor, indeed, did he look like a farmer, but reminded John of those ill-nourished and sly creatures who hung about the darker alleyways of London, whose trade was that of the nip and foist, or in prosperous times a little horse-coping. He made as if to continue on his way, but the woman stayed him with a hand on his arm.
‘Will you not sup with us, sir? You look weary and in need of food and rest.’
She smiled as she spoke and beckoned him towards the doorway.
‘I would take it kindly,’ said John, and followed her into the cottage.
It was a palace after the old woman’s hovel, clean and comfortable, with pewter on the shelves and cushions on the chairs, though of rough homespun.
‘Fetch a chair, William,’ said the woman, laying another place at the table, where a fresh loaf and a round pat of butter showed the couple were themselves about to dine.
The man, still without a word, brought up another chair, though he never took his eyes off John. He poured small beer as his wife ladled out a rich mutton stew, thick with onions and carrots, as though war and famine had never visited these parts. John ate gratefully but silently, uncertain what to make of these people, who seemed more prosperous than the land and stock would justify.
‘So, then,’ said the woman, pushing her empty plate aside and resting her plump elbows on the table, ‘have you travelled far?’
‘Far enough,’ said John. ‘From London, and heading north. This track that passes your door—will it take me the right way?’
‘Sure enough. And where in the north?’
‘Derbyshire,’ said John, who did not quite like all these questions, though they might arise from nothing more than an eagerness for news that is natural in such isolated places. The next question seemed to bear this out, for the man asked:
‘What news of the war? Is the king prisoner still?’
‘The king is dead,’ said John. ‘Beheaded in London some weeks past.’
The man nodded, as if in satisfaction, and spat accurately into the fire. ‘That’s a job well done. You’re not a soldier yourself, then?’
John shook his head. By his dress and his unarmed state he was manifestly no soldier, so that he wondered why the man should ask. He was turning over anxiously in his mind what occupation he should claim for himself when the woman rose from her chair and began to clear the table. Over her shoulder he saw that it was growing dark.
‘I must be on my way,’ he said, heaving his bundle on to his shoulder. ‘Will you let me pay for my supper?’
‘Nay, nay,’ said the woman, forestalling the man, who was clearly ready to accept. ‘It would be a poor thing indeed if we could not share a meal with a traveller in these sad times.’
She turned and surveyed him, her hands on her hips.
‘But there’s no need for you to walk further tonight.’ She smiled at him comfortably. ‘There’s a bed in the back room there that was our son’s before he went off to the war. You take your rest there, and go your ways in the morning.’
It was hardly a room, more of a large cupboard with shelves of provisions and a small window closed by a hinged board let down with a string, but there was a low truckle bed with a straw mattress. The woman brought him blankets and closed the door softly behind her. John heard a murmur of their voices, but not the words. He sat on the edge of the bed, conscious suddenly of the weary ache in his legs and back. The small space was stifling, so he hooked up the window shutter before he flung himself down to sleep with his bundle for a pillow. As exhaustion stole over him, he thought he heard the clatter of hoofs from beyond the house, where he had noticed a small barn. He was surprised that the man should go abroad so late, but perhaps they owned other land, further away, with more flocks or herds he must attend to. That would explain the unexpected affluence of the small farm.
It was well into the night when John awoke suddenly with a jerk of the heart that brought him sitting upright, confused in the unfamiliar surroundings. He had dreamed that he was back on the cart, jolting endlessly over unknown roads. The square of the window was clear in the wall above the bed, sending a broad shaft of moonlight across the tumbled blankets to the floor. What had woken him? Then he heard it, the pounding of heavy hoofs and the rattle of a cart that was bitterly familiar. He scrambled to his feet, catching up his bundle.
He laid his ear against the crack of the door. The outer door of the house opened and he heard voices—the man of the house and Tize, disputing together, and then the woman, hushing them.
‘Hold your noise,’ she said, ‘you’ll wake him.’
‘I’ll see the money first,’ said the man, ‘before I hand him over.’
‘You’ll get your money when I get the prisoner,’ said Tize, ‘where is he?’
The man growled and spat. John could hear the hiss as it hit the fire.
‘Money first.’
‘How do I know it’s not a trick?’
‘Tall,’ said the woman, ‘a plum-coloured velvet cloak—a gentleman’s clothes, to be sure, though he’s had rough usage. Carrying a bundle, and no sword or weapon about him—and who would travel so, in these times? A broad-brimmed hat and unshaven, though not a proper beard. Is that the man you’re seeking?’
‘Aye, that’s him.’
There was a pause and then, as though still reluctantly, the clink of coin. John waited no longer. He climbed on to the bed and forced his shoulders through the small window. At first he thought he would not manage, then he was through and lowering himself as carefully as he could to the ground outside. The cart stood before the house on the trackway, so he turned in the opposite direction, heading up towards the small meadow where he had seen the cows. The moon was full, lighting up the countryside with its bright, cold beams which robbed everything of colour. Buildings, grass, trees were all washed out to shades of bluish slate and black, with here and there a flash where the moonlight caught a reflection from puddles of snow melt. But it was clear enough for his pursuers to see him easily.
He began to run fast. No point in striving for silence now, they would open the door and find him gone at any moment. All he could hope for was to put enough distance behind him so that he could find some bolt-hole before they caught him. But everywhere was open and bare, except for a small thicket of trees crowning a mound like an ancient barrow. He made for the trees, but without hope.
Behind him there were shouts from the farmhouse and the sound of men running.
Almost at the same time he heard the report of the musket and something slammed past him and hit the ground before his feet, sending up a puff of dirt and fragments of turf. The man Tize, who had so nearly hit him across the wide stretch of upland would have no difficulty at this range, with the traitorous moon lighting him up like a player on the stage. He spurted forward, his breath sobbing in his chest, his feet uncertain on the rough grass of the meadow.
Crack! He felt as though someone had pushed his leg from under him. He stumbled and fell, sure he had put his foot in a rabbit hole. When he tried to stand up, he fell down again. His body would not obey him. He felt like one of the dummies made by the London prentice boys for Guy Fawkes Night, its legs stuffed with straw, flopping the whole ungainly body over and down on its face. He ran his hand down his leg, and it came away sticky. Curse the man! Against all the odds, he had been winged. He tried again to stand. Surely a musket ball at that distance could not do him serious harm. But something was damaged. He fell down on all fours and was trying to sit up when they caught him.
They beat him then, tossing him back and forth like a senseles
s Guy indeed, punching his face and his stomach until he felt his teeth loosened and he vomited all the day’s food onto the grass. By then they had him down on the ground and were kicking him around like a pig’s bladder in a boys’ game of football.
Tize strolled up, his musket on his shoulder, and stood looking down at him. Then he spat deliberately in John’s face.
‘Get him back to the cart,’ he said.
‘I don’t think he can walk,’ said Ed. ‘You got him in the leg, beautiful shot at that distance,’ he added ingratiatingly.
Tize shrugged.
‘Carry him, then. We can’t waste no more time.’ He turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the farm.
Makey, who was the biggest of the men, lifted John under the armpits, the other two took a leg each. Ed laid hold of the injured leg, on fire now with pain, and seemed to take particular pleasure in twisting it. His head thrumming with anguish and confusion, John retained just enough presence of mind to keep hold of his belongings.
The trek back to the farm took longer than his desperate dash, but John was only partly aware of it as he swam in and out of consciousness from the loss of blood and the beating. As they came into the circle of light cast by a lantern hanging by the farm door, John saw the couple who had taken him in with such kindness the previous evening. The man was weighing a purse in his hand. The woman stood with her plump arms crossed, watching with interest as they carried him in.
‘Betrayed,’ John gasped, twisting so he could look straight into the woman’s eyes.