by Smith, Skye
"They are all sitting on the fence,” replied Valentine Walton, Oliver's brother-in-law. "The Earl is with us, but he is a silly old man and it is his son who runs the estates. Oliver's cousin Henry is sheriff and he is for the king. Though we took the arsenal in Cambridge, Henry kept it from us in Huntingdon. As I said, they are all sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens in Lincolnshire."
Everyone seemed to be satisfied with the answer, but not Daniel. "That cannot be so. Everyone living in the fens, any fens, wants a change and that means siding with Parliament."
Montagu was about to scold him, for he had no voice in this meeting, but Valentine spoke first. "I was speaking of the landed gentry, not the cottagers. We have no trouble raising infantry, but what we need is cavalry."
"The Netherlands republics have kept empires at bay with their infantry for seventy years,” Daniel pointed out. "They had no choice because the landed gentry tends to side with emperors and kings. in hopes of being knighted or elevated to the peerage. Even if you formed a cavalry from the sons of landlords, could you ever trust them?" He noticed that Oliver was trying to catch his attention by running a finger across his neck, so he stopped speaking and looked around at the effects of his words. Most of the men at the table were wealthy landlords. "My apologies gentlemen. No personal insults were intended. I was speaking from my experiences in Holland."
"It is a good lesson for all of us,” Wittewronge pointed out. "My family fled Flanders when our early attempts of forming a republic were crushed by our own lords. Our democratic leanings frightened them into supporting the empire. England's and Scotland's Parliaments are not rebelling against the position of king, but the choice of king."
He was right of course, and everyone agreed with him, whether they were republicans or not. Montagu brought the meeting back in focus by asking, "Valentine, what can we do to help you in Huntingdon?"
"Oliver is already helping me there, but something must be done about Lincolnshire. Which ever side of the fence Lincolnshire hops down on, Huntingdon will hop the same way. Unfortunately the Bertie-Willoughby families control Lincolnshire."
"Perhaps we should have the report from Lincolnshire,” Montagu interrupted and looked towards William Ellis, the MP from Boston.
"As Valentine said, since Robert Bertie is not only the Earl of Lindsey and the Lord Lieutenant or Lincolnshire, and the king's Commissioner of Arrays of Lincolnshire, and worse still is the king's captain-general, his family poses a formidable problem. Having me, the MP from Boston, as the representative of all Lincolnshire on this committee says as much for I can only speak for the Fenlands of the south.
There has been some progress. When Lindsey came to wreak the king's vengeance on us for not handing over Prince Rupert's men and treasure that Daniel" he nodded to the man "forced ashore at Skegness, we were most pleased by the turnout from the villages of men willing to hold Boston against him. A thousand men rallied to help us in less than six hours."
"What's that you say?" Daniel asked as he sat forward.
"Oh, I'm sorry,” Ellis said. "I thought you knew."
"I've just come from the battles in Dorset. I'm on my way back north to the Fens, to my village of Wellenhay. I've heard nothing of this."
"There is much to tell, but you can best hear that in your own village. I'll tell you the brief version. Lindsey came to Boston with three hundred horse to punish us for affronting the king and Prince Rupert. Captain Syler rallied the two hundred men of the Boston Band and blocked and held the streets for hours until men poured in from the villages to help him. Lindsey withdrew from Boston but then began to ravage the villages all around.
It would have gone very badly for us except that one of your Wellenhay ships was at Fishtoft and they sailed to Lynn with our request for help. The Wellenhay ships and others from Lynn carried the Norfolk Bands across the Wash. Men, muskets, pistols, even some heavy ordnance. Those ships of yours are so fast that they ran a ferry service between Fishtoft and Lynn filling the Boston area with armed infantry. Eventually Lindsey was so out manned and out gunned that he withdrew."
Ellis turned away from Daniel and told the rest of the men, "So you see, southern Lincolnshire was already beholding to an Eastern association of militias even as you were planning one. Those fast ships of the Wash should be put on retainer. With them we can deploy the militia quickly up and down the coast and into all of the waterways. It was that ability that forced Lindsey to withdraw, for our men could reach places where his cavalry would bog down."
"Which villages?" Daniel asked. "You said that Lindsey's forces ravaged the villages. Which villages?"
"The ones that fought hardest against his efforts to drain the fens,” Ellis replied. "There were many small places. He was pressing horses and young men into the king's service. Dragging them away, and promising no violence to a village if they went willingly. Some roofs were burned. There were some beatings, and a few killings, and some rape of course. We were so very fortunate for if not for your ships it could have been so much worse."
"Fishtoft and Freiston?" Daniel asked.
"I'm afraid they were the first, for Lindsey was trying to stop ships from using the Haven waterway for unloading the men from Lynn." Ellis turned to Montagu and told him, "The good news is that the villages are so angry with Lindsey that the next time we need to call up the men of the area, four thousand would rally, not just a thousand. We need to build up the Boston arsenal. Currently it can supply four hundred militia, but we may need to supply thousands."
"Please excuse me,” Daniel told them as he rose from his chair. His face was white and he felt dizzy. "I've been away from my village for too long. I must get back there as soon as possible." He stumbled out of the room and raced towards the privies at the end of the corridor. He felt sick to his stomach. The privies were full so he stumbled out into the garden. Fresh air was all he really needed, but of course this was London so he had to make do with smoky air. He wondered which was worse, the coal smoke outside or the tobacco smoke in the committee rooms.
By using the same garden door beyond the poppy bed he was able to find Britta again, and he rushed to her side and spun her away from some other women and told her the bad news about Freiston from the committee meeting. Her immediate reaction was to ask him about Wellenhay. When he admitted that he hadn't asked, she sniffed at him as if he were a fool and then stormed out of the room and down the hallway. Daniel had to trot to catch up with her.
Montagu's meeting was just breaking up and the men from it were wandering across one of the great halls in search of refreshments. Britta skipped up to Oliver's side, grabbed him by the arm and physically swung him around. "What is happening in Wellenhay?" she asked. "Is everyone all right?"
"As far as I know, yes,” Oliver told her. He looked between the two villagers, the tall ships captain and the comely courtesan, and then spoke to Daniel. "I would have told you if anything untoward had happened in your village. Wellenhay was never in danger from Lindsey and his cavalry. It couldn't be because it cannot be approached by horse or by cart. Even your own horses must be pastured away from your island. Until the meeting I was not aware that it had been Wellenhay ships that had ferried the Norfolk Bands from Lynn to Boston."
Britta did a polite curtsey to Oliver, just low enough to have all the men around her stop what they were doing and watch. To Daniel she was not so polite. She took him by the elbow and steered him towards the front door. "Go, go now,” she ordered him. "Ride like the wind to Wellenhay and send me word of what is happening."
Daniel leaped to obey her order, but in the back of his mind he was thinking, "When did she get so formidable?"
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The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 19 - Defending Boston, September 1642
It was good to be back in a punt again after being so long in a saddle. Daniel had left Femke at the stable his clan used in Ely, and had taken one of the punts t
ied up at Ely quay. One of the punts branded with the arrow-crossed-bow insignia of his clan. His first task had been to bail the water out of the punt, but having to bail at least meant that the punt wasn't in use by someone else.
The old man who earned his bread by keeping an eye on the boats at Ely quay waved to him as he glided away from the dock. His job was not to protect the boats but to watch them, just so there was always a witness to anything untowards. Not that this punt needed to be watched. Nothing with the clan's brand on it needed to be watched. No one in Ely would be foolish enough to steal from the clan, not when the clan would willingly loan it to them if they had a true need.
The autumn mists were rising off the marshy banks as he poled down the River Ouse. The morning sun was still low in the sky behind the mists, so its light was more of a white glare and harsh on his eyes, and was creating eerie shadows out of the moss drooped trees. Unless a wind sprung up the mists would become fog by afternoon. The fens waterways were summer dry so the short-cut creek into Wellenhay was too shallow and snarled even for his punt. This meant that he had to continue down the Ouse another two miles to a deeper channel and then back track to Wellenhay pool and his island home.
As he approached the ship's pool he could see only two masts rising above the bush and reeds, so he expected to find a village left to women, children, and old men. A boy called to him from the watch tower, and Daniel called back to him with some banter that only a friend would know. It was not until he glided into the ship's pool that he saw that the two masts belonged to the two new ships they had bought at Skegness. They had been dragged high and dry out of the pool but work on converting them to Bermudan rigs had not gone very far.
As he stepped ashore on the main island he was mobbed by small children and each of them wanted a hug or a swing or a piggy back ride. A woman poked her head out of the longhouse. and on seeing him she walked down to join in the hugs. Or rather, she shuffled down, and then said, "So you are still alive. You could have sent word. Venka and Sarah have been worried sick." It was Sonja, one of the young widows who had married a Freiston lad.
"I sent word, but the post coaches in the south are being delayed and rerouted. Where are my wives?" As he asked this she released him from her hug and he tried to spin her with a dancing flair. The women all liked to be spun when he danced with them. She stumbled and he caught her but she gasped in pain. "What is wrong? Have you had an accident?"
She balanced herself by holding onto him until the pain subsided and she could walk again. "It was no accident, but that telling can wait until we are in the longhouse and away from the children's ears."
The doorway to the longhouse was hung with strings of seed-beads to let the air in and keep the flies out, and with Sonja supported by one of his arms they pushed their way through them and then waited a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloom after the glare of sun-on-mist. A half dozen women were laid out on thick mats under linen-cotton sheets and an ancient crone was crouched beside one of them applying an ointment.
Sonja whispered in his ear, "We were in Freiston when Lindsey's cavalry came and pressed the men into the king's service. They promised that if the men came quietly and brought their weapons and horses, that the village would be spared any violence."
"So what happened?"
"They lied. Once our men were marched away, they returned and took their pleasure and anything else that came to hand."
Daniel came closer to Oudje, the seer, and looked down at the bruises she was anointing. An anger rose in him and flushed his face. He had seen such bruises too many times on the border of Holland when soldiers took what they though was theirs by right of might. Rings of bruises on wrists and ankles where the woman had been held down, and large bruises on the inner thighs where they had been pounded again and again by many men. With his heart in his teeth he looked along the faces of the women. All of them were Wellenhay women who had just married Freiston men.
"Where is Anso?" he asked, his voice almost failing him. With Daniel away, Anso was the warlord.
"With the ships, ferrying the Norfolk Trained Bands back from Boston to Lynn,” Sonja told him.
There was nothing he could do here but make the women uncomfortable by his presence so he turned to go back outside. Oudje grabbed at his ankle and told him in her well practiced otherworldly voice, "I warned you. I told you that you must move our clan away from the places of long winters. I warned you about the wars and famines of such an age of ice. They are upon us."
For a moment he did not move. You could never tell with Oudje whether it was her speaking or some spirit speaking through her. It was always best to wait in silence in case there were more words to come.
"Two generations,” hissed Oudje's normal voice, "the ages of ice last at least two generations. Generations of greed and war causing famine and pestilence."
Another moment passed but Oudje had gone back to caring for the injured as if she had never spoken, so Daniel made for the bead curtain and the fresh air outside. Sonja hobbled after him. "There are only us and the children here. Everyone else is on the ships or helping the folk in Freiston."
"But who is guarding Wellenhay?" he asked and then felt foolish at saying it. The reason his clan settled here fifty generations ago was because this island in these marshes was so safe from attack. The women and children could live here in safety while the men were away with their herds or their ships. It was the very reason why Oliver had left the college silver here instead of in Cambridge Castle.. This island was a very safe place. "I'm going to Freiston,” he said quickly before she could laugh at his foolish question.
The children had been helpful and had unloaded his punt and carried his gear to Venka's house for him, so he had to load everything back in it again before he could push off. All the way back to the river he was drowning in grief and guilt, but mostly guilt. If he hadn't captured Prince Rupert's men and treasure, Boston and the surrounding villages would have been left in peace. It felt good to take his guilt and frustration out on the punting pole, so he traveled the twelve miles downstream to Lynn within three hours.
One of the Freisburn ships was at Lynn quay unloading local militia men, so he poled right up to it and called out for the skipper to see who was the skipper. A moment later Teesa and another clanswoman looked over the gunnels and down at him. "Teesa, who is the skipper?" Hopefully it was one of the elders who would know what was going on.
"I'm skipper,” Teesa told him. "Our men's backs were needed to raise roofs in Freiston so I brought these men back to Lynn."
"Will you take me to Freiston?"
"Climb aboard. I leave within the hour." She reached down to grab at the things he was handing up to her while the other women threw down a rope ladder for him to climb up.
Once onboard the hugs went on for a long time. He was so relieved to find out that his step-daughter Teesa had not been 'injured', that he almost wept. The men waiting their turn to cross the gangplank to the quay were all watching him enviously. Teesa was in her huntress togs, but over them she wore a yellow flowing skirt, and she had her golden hair braided and coiled out of her way like a milkmaid.
A band captain, not much older than a lad, came over and shook her hand and thanked her for the safe passage. If the tall clansman hadn't been standing their with his saddle holsters hung over his shoulders, he would probably have kissed her on both cheeks in the French style. Instead Teesa kissed both of his cheeks and a cheer went up from his men as the captains face turned red to match his hair.
Once the thirty men and their gear were unloaded, only Teesa and her crew were left. The ship had been completely overloaded on its way from Boston across the Wash but at least that had given the women lots of hands that could help out. On the way empty back to Boston there would be just the crew ... four women. But then, they weren't just women, they were Frisian clanswomen ... tall and lanky and fit of limb and mind.
Daniel lay out on the deck, relaxed, and let them run the ship. His arms and
back ached from hours of fast punting. A punt was a very efficient boat at slow speeds where it would glide along between pushes, but when you were in a hurry it was like poling a barge. Once out of the Ousemouth and into the Wash, with the sails set, everyone gathered around Teesa at the tiller and told Daniel everything that had been happening.
"Two days after you left to go and find Blake there was a funeral in Freiston. One of their elders had died and everyone with ties to Freiston was gathering, so it was opportune for sealing the new mutual aid pact between Freiston and Wellenhay. One of our ships went over carrying the Freiston men who have joined our clan with their new wives, plus a few other women just in case there were more husbands to be found. Venka and Cleff went along because as elders they could seal the pact for our clan. Anso was still away with Sarah on the Swift, delivering your prisoners to London."
Teesa was strangely quiet through this telling. Usually she would have been breaking in with side comments, but today she concentrated on the tiller and the course.
"That was the day that the Earl of Lindsey brought his cavalry to Boston. The men of Freiston, the men of all the villages, grabbed up their weapons and ran to Boston to help defend the town. Cleff ordered all of our folk back to the ship at Fishtoft, just in case. Our new clansmen went with the other Freiston men to Boston, so their new wives stayed behind in Freiston.
Later that day a messenger from the Mayor of Boston arrived at Fishtoft asking that a ship go and ask for help from Lynn. Since our ship was already floating, and since it was far faster than any of the other ships, we took the message to Lynn. In Lynn there were endless delays while messages were sent all over Norfolk to bring men to the port. While that was happening, Cleff borrowed a horse and rode to Ely, punted to Wellenhay and mustered all our men and ships to ferry the Norfolk bands across the Wash."