Bonalleck stared at her. 'My wife has offended you.'
'Absolutely the contrary. Your wife has had nothing to do with me. I am married to her brother and she hates him — yet should she hate me too, without even seeing me? Where in this cold demeanour is "testing truth according to her conscience", which I have always been told is the Protestant ideal, or examining the "pure" evidence?'
'My wife,' said Bridget's husband heavily (he had drunk little; he was studiously godly), 'spent many hours in prayer, asking the Lord to show her a way to deal with you.'
Juliana scoffed angrily. 'If, after so much strict deliberation between the two of them, our Lord informs Mrs Bridget Bonalleck that I am not fit company, then I am as damned as a cockatrice and must take the straight path to hell. Your wife's worthy disapproval makes me feel like a court lady-in-waiting I once observed, making her presence felt in the pews by wearing transparent cobweb lawn.'
In Oxford, she had once seen two such young women float into church in low-cut white gowns, with their breasts barely concealed; among male Royalists they won themselves a reputation of dressing 'like angels', though Nerissa had been outraged. 'All the morals of a rag of old rope!'
Juliana eased herself wearily to her feet. Exhaustion made her disputatious. 'Here is an awkwardness, Mr Bonalleck. For while Mrs Bridget is informed I am so dangerous that merely to greet me politely would threaten her zealous soul, then the Lord comes tiptoeing from her chamber into my own where He tells me with His enduring compassion that I am an honest woman who has many troubles, yet who leads a decent life, with a true conscience. I bid you goodnight, Mr Bonalleck!'
Next morning Juliana, Mercy and the children were permitted to enter Oxford. There was never much difficulty getting into a beleaguered city; the enemy wanted the largest numbers possible inside, using up resources, in order to cause hardship and encourage surrender.
Nervously, Juliana went to the St Aldate's house. The key Nerissa had given her still worked. As soon as she entered, she knew Lovell was there. On his return, he had done what she ought to have done herself: sub-let. He had filled the spare rooms with lodgers, thus enabling himself both to pay the landlord and to obtain some weekly rents. With this income, he had bought new spurs and a brown corded suit, then hired a bootboy. Juliana found him in the parlour, his stockinged feet on the fender before a roaring fire, reading a news-sheet.
She gazed at him for a second before he became aware of her. Then he dropped the paper and spun to his feet. He was a very pretty little man… Oh yes. Under the sometimes-harsh exterior his attractiveness remained. When he smiled at a woman, it was clear he knew that perfectly.
Yet Juliana was his woman. His face lit. Her expression joyfully answered his. In an instant, the two were in each other's arms, clasped hard. Orlando felt very much leaner. Six months in prison had left him thin, weak and drained. 'Oh thank God!' he exclaimed as he held her, speaking with such force that Juliana believed he meant it honestly.
Next moment Tom burst in on them, screaming with delight at the father he must have only half remembered. Tom flung himself at Orlando; Orlando roared and tossed the child up to the smoke-stained kitchen ceiling while Juliana hung back, wincing in case her husband lost his grip and dropped her boy into the fire.
Various things emerged over the next days. Orlando now styled himself major. 'I had to bump myself up a rank to gain better quarters.' Even now he was back in Oxford, no one seemed to query it. He called himself a 'reformado', an officer whose regiment had been disbanded or merged into another, with no position left for him. 'First I was dumped in a hideous prison, the Compter in Southwark. But I managed to be moved to Lambeth Palace. The Archbishop of Canterbury's suites were excellent. Sir Roger Twysden's wife shared three rooms there with her husband, having a study and a fair chamber with a chimney. Not being a knight or baronet, I rated one room only — sometimes forced to share that with another prisoner,' Lovell added hastily, seeing that Juliana was wondering why she had not been allowed to come to him.
And you had only enough ink to write to your father!' she sniffed.
Lovell gazed at her. 'Now you have met all the family, you are judging me as they do!'
'I am your wife. Judging you is my special privilege. So, dear heart, how did you escape from the ecclesiastical palace? Was there a crusty one-legged jailor with a beautiful unmarried daughter?'
'Of course!' teased Lovell.
'So you quickly won her confidence and unscrupulously seduced her?'
'Well, to be truthful, the dame was built like a woolsack with three bristly chins and she smelt of piss. Even the rats were scared of her. It took six months just to get her to let me out of a postern and I drew the line at the deed.'
'But she liked you?'
'I liked her more — for having a cousin who was a waterman. He rowed me all the way from Lambeth up to Richmond.'
'Then you walked home?'
'I found a horse.'
He stole the horse, undoubtedly.
He had not been captured after Naseby. He had not even fought at Naseby.
'But Edmund said you were seen!'
Treves must have been so expecting to see me, he imagined me there
… The sad truth is, sweetheart, some of Fairfax's damned new noddlers came into the village the evening before. Ireton and his boys, I think. They captured men of ours who were playing skittles in a tavern garden, then they burst in on us officers, as we sat eating our dinner. Instead of saying grace' — Instead of what? scoffed Juliana silently at this unlikely decoration — 'we were surprised and taken, before the fight ever began.'
'Well, you escaped being hurt,' Juliana replied, feeling her equilibrium falter. Would anything about this man ever be straightforward? Later, she would be relieved when Edmund visited and seemed as loyal to Lovell as always; he confirmed that the eve-of-battle arrests at Naseby village had happened.
Changing the subject, Juliana told Orlando about his brother's fate at Bristol. She spared him no details of Ralph's disfigurement, nor the lasting effects she thought it would have on his family. Orlando listened, with more respect than she had feared. He had seen men with such devastating wounds. He sat, head bowed for a long time, looking depressed.
'So…' he asked, after a suitable pause. 'How did my loving relatives receive you?'
'Badly'
'That was hard for you.'
'You cannot blame them.' Juliana risked the tricky question: 'Was I right to go?'
Orlando flung up his hands. 'You were right to try. By heaven, you know I tried myself, truly. Anything a man could say to win them over, I threw at them as obsequiously as they could wish.'
That was not quite how the squire had described it. I assume desperation made him peremptory. All he lacked was a demand that I myself should pay the fine for his delinquency… 'What was your father's reply to you, Orlando?'
'Did he not tell you?'
'Only hints.'
'He wished no evil on me, but said he could do nothing with Parliament. He sent me only one haughty letter, telling me to compound and beg for a pardon, then to mend my life.'
'Your sister Mary wrote more often, she told me.'
Orlando laughed briefly, suddenly himself again. 'Indeed! Endless sanctimonious instructions… After the first, I threw the letters in the fire unopened.'
'You had a fire then!' Juliana could be arch, 'I would have been allowed to bring you food and comforts. Would you not have liked tidings of me and your boys?' She struggled against a catch in her voice.
'It would have broken my heart!' cried Orlando, like a true cavalier. 'The worst of being imprisoned was to be separated from you!' They were back on their old footing by that time, so Juliana received this gallantry without excitement.
She told Orlando about meeting his land agent and her forays among his tenants. He listened with astonishment. Then he declared he had always recognised her great spirit. He called her a queen among wives. 'Have the committee given you a cert
ificate?'
'They have. But in view of your escape, my effort was wasted.'
'Oh I won't pay a fine now, but the certificate will be of good use if ever I am captured again.'
'You intend to go on fighting? You could still compound for your estates. Say you will live in peace. Thousands of Royalists are doing it. Comply, and you could be given all your land back.' Juliana was testing him. She was certain that he had escaped in order to avoid swearing an oath he could not keep. He would fight for the King again until every hope was gone. 'Did you give your parole to your captors?'
'I may have done…' Orlando looked vague. 'Did you get any funds from my father? He swore he would give me nothing.'
'And he was true to his word.'
The squire's five pounds was hidden in a pillow. Now Juliana was, as she had boasted to Isaac Bonalleck, an honest woman with a conscience. One who was lying, bare-faced, to her husband.
They had three and a half months together. For the rest of January, February, March, and almost all of April, they lived like a real family. Since the town was under siege, it was hardly normal life. Juliana felt she was permanently waiting to begin a proper domestic regime. Still, there were few deprivations. Three thousand cattle and cartloads of other provisions had been brought in during the previous autumn to prepare for the siege.
All the careful routines she had established for bringing up her children sensibly were upset by Lovell. He had no idea that infants should keep regular mealtimes and bedtimes. He would bring them expensive presents, splurging their meagre funds, while Juliana tried to scrimp. Tom, in particular, was like an intriguing pet to Orlando, who would disrupt their quiet lives with games and dangerous excursions 'to view the rebels over the walls'. A bad moment was when he made small firecrackers from gunpowder for Tom, throwing one in the fire unexpectedly to terrify Juliana. She could not remonstrate since Lovell used the excuse that he wanted to spend every possible moment with his sons, or at least with Tom, who was old enough to play. 'If we are enjoying ourselves, what can be the harm?'
'You buy Tom's love with a hobbyhorse, while you are teaching him to see his mother as a figure of fun — or a complaining ogre, which is worse. I see harm in that, Orlando! And I shall murder you, if he is stupidly burned by a firecracker.'
'I shall reform!' promised Orlando. He solemnly told his son, 'Thomas, your mother's word is law. Follow my example and do not make her grieve. And if ever I am not here, Tom, you must obey and cherish her.'
Tom, bright-eyed with shared mischief, covered his mouth to hide his enormous grin, then ran off in fits of silly giggling.
'He is three years old. And you are — '
'Twenty-eight!' admitted Lovell penitently, with that untrustworthy look in his eyes.
At the end of January Sir Thomas Fairfax began a siege of Exeter. The King's trusty general, Sir Ralph Hopton, lured away Fairfax and most of the New Model Army by digging in at Torrington, where Fairfax winkled him out after a fierce fight. Fairfax himself had a narrow escape from an enormous explosion when a desperate soldier fired a huge magazine in the church. Offered generous terms, Hopton accepted; he disbanded the King's army in the west and went abroad. The Prince of Wales gave up and sailed for the Scilly Isles. In March another old Royalist, Lord Astley, marched from Worcester to bring the King at Oxford three thousand men. At Stow-on-the-Wold, he ran into a joint New Model Army force under Rainborough, Fleetwood and Brereton. After a heavy exchange of fire, Astley's force was overwhelmed and all made prisoners. This was the last remaining Royalist army in the field.
The King sought permission to go to Westminster, to negotiate in person, but was refused. A Frenchman began brokering terms for Charles secretly to join the Scottish Covenanters' army.
In April Sir Thomas Fairfax brought up the main body of the New Model Army from the West Country. The siege of Oxford began to bite. On the 26th the last Royalist garrison guarding the area, at Woodstock, fell. Next day the town governor, Sir Thomas Glemham, waved off a certain 'Harry', servant to a Mr Ashburnham. Harry and three companions successfully rode out over Magdalen Bridge. It was the King, disguised in rough clothes and with shorn hair, using a counterfeit warrant to get out through the Parliamentary lines.
Fairfax must have known the King had gone. He toughened up. At the end of the month he ordered his troops to allow no one to leave Oxford, except to negotiate terms. It had become a close siege.
Eight days after he left Oxford, the King turned up outside the long-standing Royalist base at Newark-on-Trent. It was still being besieged by the Covenanters and Charles placed himself in the Scots' control, hoping for better terms than he might expect from the English. He told Newark to surrender; three days later, the Scots took it. Immediately, they struck camp and transported themselves north to Newcastle, with the King in semi-captivity. In June, letters from him were intercepted, revealing his duplicitous secret negotiations with the Scots whilst at the same time, yet again, he requested armed support from the Irish and French. Parliament regarded this as treasonous.
In Oxford, neither side wanted a damaging siege. There was anxiety, though no desperate hardship. A magazine to supply provisions opened. A pronouncement was made that there would be a penalty of death for any soldier taking food from civilians. Cannon-fire was heard. Fairfax formally summoned the city, sending a trumpeter:
Sir, I do by these summon you to deliver up the City of Oxford into my hands for the use of the Parliament. I very much desire the preservation of that place (so famous for learning) from ruin, which inevitably is like to fall upon it, unless you concur…
There was a delay to save face. Artillery-fire was exchanged. A cannon ball hit Christ Church. A shot from Oxford killed a New Model Army colonel on Headington Hill. The Parliamentarians remained confident. On June the 15th, outside Sir Thomas Fairfax's tented headquarters, Oliver Cromwell's daughter Bridget was married to the dark-browed manipulator, Henry Ireton.
The outcome of the siege had never been in doubt. There were said to be six months' supplies of food remaining, but there was no point holding out. The King sent Oxford his formal permission to give up. The governor signed articles of surrender. Negotiations dragged on, but on the 25th of June the keys of the city were formally handed to Sir Thomas Fairfax. The garrison was allowed to march out, each of the three thousand men with a safe conduct to travel home. Princes Rupert and Maurice left, also with passes to leave the country. However, James, Duke of York, was sent as Parliament's prisoner to London.
Oxford filled up with New Model Army soldiers in their red coats. Although he was a Cambridge man, Fairfax put a special guard on the Bodleian Library. That preserved it from destruction, though the Parliamentarians found many books had already had their chains cut and been fraudulently sold.
By then, with his wife's foreknowledge, Orlando Lovell had quietly disappeared. Juliana clung on in the house in St Aldate's, wondering yet again when, if ever, she might next see her husband. He had promised to come back for her, once normality resumed. He said it was best if she truthfully had no idea where he was. She feared he had gone with Prince Rupert, and had left the country — not something Juliana wished for herself, though she would follow him if he asked. She missed him in the house and in her bed. She was hoping that this time he had not left her pregnant.
'Well, little Tom. Now it is just you and me again, and baby Valentine.'
Then Tom gazed up at her for a moment, as if to make sure she was not actually weeping, before he returned to playing on the floor extremely quietly. He had his father's eyes and his mother's swift intelligence. Tom could adapt to new situations fast. He had grasped, and amiably accepted, that times for revelry and noise were over. He had gained a hobbyhorse but knew he must take good care of it because there would not be another gift for a long while. The father he had only just come to know was gone again.
Chapter Thirty-Eight — On the Road: 1645
Some time in the aftermath of the battle of Naseby, a male travell
er had ridden along the empty highway between Beaconsfield and Windsor. He looked well-to-do. His hat was velvet with half an ostrich plume, his cloak was scarlet, his britches had a rash of gold lacing, his boots were polished and lace cuffs dangled elegantly from his coat sleeves. His manner was jaunty and careless, despite the seriousness of the times. If he was a Royalist fugitive, he hid it well.
A mile or two before Slough, the rider came upon a young woman disconsolately leaning on a stile beside the road. In the cheerful way of any seventeenth-century gentleman who spied an unescorted female, he at once reined in his horse and bent down to offer her the courtesy of a lewd offer. As if she had been expecting this privilege, she straightened up and turned towards him. She was monumentally pregnant.
With the shameless good grace of the men of his time, he immediately apologised and — after a disappointed curse — changed the offer to one of general assistance. Clearly exhausted, the vulnerable damsel begged for a ride to the next town. He agreed. She climbed on the handy stile and mounted behind him side-saddle, surprisingly limber in her movements for one so near her time — though she groaned all too convincingly as she took her place.
They rode on. He whistled 'Greensleeves' to himself with the good humour any man would feel while doing a good deed for a pregnant woman. She clung to him, one slim arm around his waist rather charmingly. Since he had to presume she was a respectable wife, he refrained from conversation. She sat silent until he became used to her presence.
At a particularly deserted spot, with woods on either hand, the rider felt a sudden jarring movement behind him. As he half turned indignantly, he saw something drop behind the horse — a large cushion.
Next minute his head was pulled hard back by his flowing hair, then he was shoved off his mount sideways. His short sword flew from its scabbard and executed a spiral into a ditch. As he landed heavily on to the road, the woman jumped down after him. Practised hands slipped a noose of rope around his body, which tightened with a series of painful tugs, while his ruthless assailant pressed the hard, cold butt of a weapon meaningfully against his right ear. When he wriggled, she shoved his face in the mud with her foot, while she continued trussing him like a capon. Once he was helpless, she came rifling through his pockets, then she moved off to search his travel bags.
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