He drew a sharp breath and looked at Kate. “Nothing had changed, Kate. We still loved each other and she was trapped in a marriage to a man for whom she felt nothing. This time there was nothing innocent in our relationship. Over the winter months we stole as much time together as we could and inevitably became lovers.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “By spring I had run out of excuses. I had to go back to the war."
His mouth twisted in anguish at the memory of the frightful scene with Mary that had followed that news. “Mary begged me to take her with me. She pleaded with me but I left her with her family in Oxford."
"Why didn't you take her?” Kate asked
"Oh, Kate,” he said, “it was not that simple. I couldn't have her trailing after me like a draggle-tailed camp follower. You've seen it, you know the life she would have led. She was not bred for that and given the fate of the women in the King's baggage lines after Naseby, I was entirely right in that decision."
"What happened to the women?” Kate asked.
"The women, Welsh, Irish and English, were raped, mutilated and turned out to die in the fields and the lanes. It was not a proud moment for the Lord's chosen. Surely you heard the stories, even in Yorkshire?"
Kate's eyes widened and she shuddered. “I had no idea.” She paused. “Then why not bring her here to Seven Ways?"
He laughed. “Here? My mother would hardly countenance me installing my mistress, someone else's wife, under her roof! No, Kate, as I saw it I had no choice but to leave Mary in Oxford as a problem that I would sort out after the fighting ended."
"After Naseby, the war was all but lost,” he continued. “Rupert was sent west to hold Bristol, and as one of his officers I went too. The west was ill disposed to the King's forces. Goring and Grenville had seen to that,” he said angrily. “And they were too busy fighting among themselves. Fairfax laid siege to Bristol and for many good military reasons Rupert surrendered in September of that year. He went back to Oxford and was promptly cashiered by the King for cowardice."
"And did you go back to Oxford?” Kate asked.
He shook his head. “Rupert left me in the west to lend what little support I could to the lost cause. I had a bit of fun for a month or so, leading raiding parties and harrying the tail of Fairfax's army, but my luck ran out. My men were tired, hungry and demoralized. Half of them had already deserted. One morning we ran straight into a regiment of Parliament horse. I had no choice. After putting up a token resistance I surrendered."
He paused before taking a deep breath. “It was my incredible misfortune to fall into the hands of a man whose family had paid dearly for their allegiance to Parliament at the hands of Goring and his crew. He hailed from Devon and certainly had no love for the King's men. By that time I had about twenty of my men left. He incarcerated us in the tower of an old church and left us with no food and water for two days before he summoned me to his presence."
Jonathan closed his eyes. He could still see the scene of that encounter so clearly: the tallow candles flickering on the table, the rancid smell of the two troopers who had escorted him and above everything else the hatred in the eyes of the two men who faced him; the colonel because he was a royalist and Stephen Prescott because he was Jonathan Thornton.
"Is this the man?” the colonel had asked Prescott.
Prescott nodded, his eyes glittering in the light of the candle. “This is Jonathan Thornton. He is responsible for the hanging of five of our men he had taken prisoner."
Jonathan stared at him incredulously. “You lying bastard,” he spat. “I've never hung prisoners!"
Prescott's lip twitched. “Ah, but I have a witness, a personal account."
Jonathan met his eyes with contempt. “And I bet you paid him well."
The colonel thumped the table. “Be quiet. I've not given you leave to speak. You will be taken to London for trial and tomorrow five of your men hang. Captain Prescott, as we agreed, I'll leave you now."
"No!” Jonathan lunged forward as the colonel left the room. “I've never hanged prisoners and I expect the same rights of war be accorded to my men."
But the door slammed shut, leaving him at the mercy of Stephen Prescott.
Prescott laughed, a cold mirthless laugh. “If I had my way, Thornton, you would hang with your men tomorrow. Instead you'll have the pleasure of watching them die and know there is nothing you can do to prevent it."
He crossed the floor towards Jonathan and struck him hard across the face with his heavy leather gauntlet. As Jonathan buckled against the troopers at the force of the blow, Prescott hit him again then seized him by the hair, forcing him to look into his face.
"That is for Mary, you bloody adulterer. You murdering whoreson,” he hissed.
Blood ran from Jonathan's nose, and he could taste it in his mouth but he still forced himself to meet Prescott's eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked defiantly.
"You thought you could set cuckold's horns on my head, the pair of you?” Prescott said. “Well you have both paid the price. Mary is dead. Dead giving birth to your bastard."
"Dead?” Jonathan groaned and his knees gave way.
"Dead and her bastard child with her."
Jonathan sank in the grip of the two troopers as the memory of Mary's pleading came back to him. She must have known she carried his child. Why hadn't she told him?
Prescott hauled him up again but Jonathan was too far gone in grief at Mary's death to care what happened to him anymore.
"She's rotting in hell where she deserves to be,” Prescott said viciously. A cold smile spread across his face. “And you're here with me. Hell may seem like a pleasant alternative."
Prescott stood back and let the troopers finish what he had started. They stopped short of killing him and when he came around he was back in the dank tower.
His young cornet bent over him, trying to wipe the blood from his face. “What's going to happen to us, sir?” he asked anxiously.
Jonathan spat blood from his mouth. With Cornet William's help he pulled himself painfully into a sitting position. He looked around the dirty, anxious faces. What could he say? There had been no indication which five men were to die. The choice no doubt would be random.
"Tomorrow five of you will hang,” he said at last, his voice made indistinct by his bruised and swollen mouth.
His words fell into the stillness like a stone down a well.
"Sweet Jesus, why?” a taut voice had asked.
"They allege that I hanged five of their men and this is just retribution,” he said.
"But that's lies, sir,” one of them said. “We can vouch for that. You've always treated prisoners with honour."
Lies. Lies perpetrated because of me, Jonathan thought helplessly.
"It's not what we did or didn't do,” Jonathan said. “Whether it was us or someone else, we must pay the price."
"Is there no hope? No one we can appeal to? Fairfax?” Cornet Williams sounded hopelessly young and afraid.
Jonathan shook his head. “By the time Fairfax hears of it, it will be too late. All we can do is pray and hope for a miracle."
There were no miracles and God seemed to have entirely deserted them. A steady rain fell the following morning as the small ragged, band of prisoners were paraded in the village square
"Prescott made my men draw straws,” Jonathan said, his hand tightening on Kate's. “I remember the absolute silence as they died. Cornet Williams took fifteen minutes to die, his legs thrashing wildly as he slowly choked at the end of a badly tied knot. He was only seventeen."
Far away from that scene, both in time and distance, Jonathan closed his eyes as he saw again so clearly the faces that had haunted his dreams from that day on. So many, many times he had played the episode through in his mind, wondering what he could have said or done that may have averted the ultimate tragedy of those five wasted lives.
Of all the deaths he had witnessed in the bloody years of war, his brother and his father among them, the de
ath of those five ragged, starving men had wrought the greatest change in the reckless young man who had stolen his grandfather's horse and ridden off to war.
"Prescott never took his eyes off me,” Jonathan concluded with a shuddering breath. “He watched and he smiled. The same smile I saw as he raised his pistol against me in York."
Kate shivered. “He had his chance. Why didn't he hang you when he could?"
"He wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to live with the knowledge that it was I who was responsible for the death of my men. For what it was worth Fairfax, to his credit, was not prepared to believe the lies of one witness to my so-called atrocities and did not send me to trial. I was exchanged fairly quickly and I took ship for France as soon as I was able. The rest you know."
Kate turned her face towards him. There were tears in her eyes. Jonathan gently brushed the hair from her face.
"I'm sorry, Kate. I shouldn't have told you,” he said regretfully.
"No,” she said, “I'm glad you did. I had no idea such things went on."
He shook his head. “David Ashley protected you well. Sadly, sweetheart, mine is just one tale among many. The atrocities committed in the name of King or Parliament will never be truly counted."
"And you,” she said, “you're a soldier too, just as capable of doing the acts of which you were accused?"
He looked her in the eye. “Kate, I was young and I was arrogant but I pride myself on being a professional soldier. I have never raised a hand against a woman or a child and, to my knowledge, no man under my command has ever done so."
And lived to tell the tale, he may have added, but chose not to.
She looked up at him, trying in the dark to read the unfathomable depths of his eyes. She touched his face, gently tracing the line of his cheekbone, searching for the ghosts in his eyes; the frail figure of his beloved Mary, the young cornet and the four other soldiers who had died for that illicit love, and linking them all the spectre of Stephen Prescott.
All his words to Giles forgotten, he pulled her gently off the chair and she knelt on the hearth opposite him.
He took her in his arms and held her close, almost crushing her. “Kate, Kate,” he whispered into her disordered hair. “I love you, Kate. You're everything to me and even if I am gone tomorrow, that will not change."
She whispered his name, her body melting in his embrace. Gently and with infinite tenderness they kissed, obliterating the dreadful memories of the last few weeks. They knelt together for a long time in silence, just holding each other.
Jonathan closed his eyes, smelling the familiar scent of rosemary that was so intrinsically a part of this woman he loved so much. He looked down at her, smoothing the unruly hair from her face.
"Kate, would you marry me?” he whispered.
She looked up at him and smiled, warmly and tenderly. Gently she laid her hand on his face. “Yes, my dearest love, I will marry you but only when you can stand beside me a free man.” Her voice sounded calm and clear, more like the Kate of old.
She felt him stiffen and sensed the sudden desolation he felt.
Quietly, she answered for him, “You're thinking that may never be?” Kate sat back against her chair, wrapping her arms around her knees and looking at him. A spark of her old self returned to her face. “It's not a woman's fancy, Jon. There is nothing I want more in this world than to call myself your wife, but one thing the past weeks have taught me is that I am more use to you and your family untrammelled by the Thornton name."
He leaned back against the other chair, running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he acknowledged that she was right.
"Jon, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you."
He shook his head. “No, my dearest girl, you've just brought home a rather painful reality. I've always been so sure of myself and the rightness of the cause I fought for but I've had plenty of time to think in the past weeks. God alone knows how tired I am of fighting and running. I don't want to see out my days in penury in some garret in Amsterdam or Paris in the name of a cause I can do nothing more for!” He shook his head. “Now, Kate, I don't know what to do."
"Make your peace with Parliament?” Kate ventured.
He looked at her and sadly shook his head. “My death warrant is signed, I'm told. For me there will be no peace with Parliament. I'm sorry, Kate. I've no choice. I must go back to France and bide my time."
"Take me with you,” Kate said in a small voice.
Jonathan felt a stab of pain at the poignant echo of Mary Woolnough's words.
"Oh, sweetheart. Would you leave Tom and your home and your family to follow me? Spend your life wondering where your next meal is coming from or where you will sleep the night? Dearest, that would kill our love surer than anything that has come between us before.” He took her hands and turned them over, kissing the palms. “I will untie this hellish knot that is my life. Will you wait for me, Kate?” He looked up at her.
She met his gaze. “There is, there will never be anyone else, Jonathan,” she said quietly. “Even if you find me stiff with rheumatics, making clothes for my grandchildren, I'll be waiting for you."
He smiled at the thought. “Picture us, my dearest, hobbling down the aisle together, exchanging recipes for rheumatic ointments at the altar."
They had to laugh; the reality of their situation had become too painful to contemplate.
Sixteen
The old steward, Joseph, coughed discreetly. The two people by the window in the library sprang apart, and the old servant suppressed a smile. After all the fuss and bother of the past few weeks it was good to see a little happiness. He had always had a special affection for Jonathan, whom he had seen grow from a baby, and it gladdened him to see that the boy had at last found someone to suit him.
"Mistress Ashley, there's a person asking to see you,” Joseph said.
"A person?” asked Kate. “A male or female person?"
"A female person,” replied Joseph with a look of barely concealed distaste.
Intrigued, Kate told Jonathan to wait in the library and swept into the lower parlour. A formidable female person of ample proportions with fading red hair stood in the middle of floor, clutching a large bundle and shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Seeing Kate, she sank into a wobbly and inelegant curtsy.
"My lady,” she said.
Kate sighed. She had given up correcting the mode of address. “What can I do for you?” she asked.
Kate heard the door behind her open and the woman's eyes flicked from Kate to the library door. A broad smile lit up the plump face.
"Well, bless me!” she exclaimed as Jonathan entered the room. “You didn't get very far did you?"
"Who's this?” Kate turned to Jonathan.
"This,” said Jonathan, “is a very old and dear friend, Sally Bramble of the Black Cross Inn in Bromsgrove."
Sal dumped her bundle on the table with a sigh of relief. “There you are,” she said, adding, “I hardly expected to be delivering them to you personally."
Jonathan undid the string that bound his crumpled cloak. It seemed an eternity since he had left the persona of Colonel Thornton on Sal's kitchen floor. Everything was there: clothes, his boots, his pistols and his sword. He picked the sword up and started to draw it when he remembered it would not have been cleaned since the battle and quickly sheathed it again.
"Your horse is outside,” Sal said. “Had the devil of a job explaining why we had such a fine stallion in our stable."
"Thank you Sal—for everything,” Jonathan said with heartfelt gratitude.
Kate, recognizing in Sal a true heart however dubious her connection to Jonathan might be, took a step towards the woman. “If there is ever anything we can do for you..."
Sal smiled. “Thank you, my lady. I'll remember that."
Kate dispatched Sal to the kitchen, and Jonathan took Kate's hand and led her out into the courtyard. In the urgency of the flight from Worcester, he had paid scant attention to the horse t
hat had carried him so well. It had simply been the closest to hand when he had needed it. Jonathan ran a hand over the horse's glossy black coat. Sal had looked after the animal well.
"Jonathan! Whose horse is that?” Kate exclaimed. “He looks fit for the King himself,” She turned to him, her eyes shining. “This may be the answer to a prayer. Do you suppose we could start breeding horses again? We have the mares."
He nodded and looked at her. “Do you know anything about breeding horses, Kate?"
She laughed. “Not a thing, Jonathan, but Jacob and I have discussed it and he seemed to think it was a way of restoring some of our fortune."
He took her in his arms. “Well you're going to have to learn, aren't you, dear girl,” he said as he kissed her.
A tug on Jonathan's sleeve interrupted them. With the dissipation of the tension in the house, Tom's usual good humour had returned and he smiled cheekily at his mother and cousin.
"What do you think of the latest addition to the stable, Tom?” Jonathan laid an affectionate arm across the boy's shoulder.
Tom cast a critical eye over the horse. “What's his name?” he asked.
Jonathan shrugged. “I've no idea. What should we call him, do you think?"
"Black Boy,” said Tom decisively.
"Why Black Boy?” asked Kate with a smile.
"Because that's what they call the King, don't they?” said Tom. “And he helped save the King's life."
Leaving the newly christened Black Boy in the appreciative hands of the stable boy and Tom, Kate and Jonathan turned back towards the house with their arms around each other.
* * * *
Kate woke to the gentle touch of lips on her forehead. She opened her eyes and looked up at the man she loved. He smiled down at her and bent his head to kiss her.
By The Sword Page 24