She lets herself cry, then, and lets him comfort and shush her.
‘Hey now,’ he whispers. ‘Hey now. When the fever takes you, sometimes it is strong. Why do you think, kitten, that I went off to fight in the Low Countries?’
She looks up into his face.
‘Yes. But I forgot her, in time, and I came back and married your mother when I was free of my apprenticeship, and all our families approved of the match. And though it didn’t start with a fever, it was full of laughter and joy, and love. Before we lost her.’
Kneeling in front of him, she leans into him and he strokes her hair.
‘Now promise, kitten. I have Will’s pledge.’
‘I promise, Father.’ She knows that this vow, given in love and in a room free of anger or bitterness, must be kept. ‘I will not see Will again.’
‘It will fade, kitten, this pain. Trust your old fool of a father on this. It will fade. And in the meantime, we have enough to fear.’ He pulls at his wine, drinking deeply.
‘Oh, Hen. Darling girl, darling pudding cat. When I went to fight the papists in the Low Countries, I sailed off, all hope and bragging. Absurdly, stupidly young I was, Hen. And I climbed the main mast. It was a clear day, Hen, and the ship was steady in the water. As I climbed I looked up, as they tell you to, always up. Hand over fist and not looking down. The t’gallant masts were swung up and the royal yards were crossed. Up near the top there, Hen, the ropes that you stand on get thinner, so by the top you’re curling your toes like a monkey to keep from falling.
‘I paused then, at the top, and looked down. Such a long way down. At the top, though the ship was steady at the deck, the mast was rolling in great arcs, pitching and tossing. And such a fear rose in my gut that I began to shake. And I thought I would shake myself out of the ropes and fall into the sea. And I stood up there, rolling and yawing, the sea rising to meet me, then falling back, and my legs quivering and my heart hammering at my chest.’
Hen watches him as he relives the great fear. His hand is trembling, and the wine in the glass is cresting up into waves.
‘And now it’s like that in my head. I wanted to learn about the world, and how it worked. And then I learn that everything is arsey-versey. The earth goes round the sun. We’re not the centre of the universe, little pudding cat. The stars are not fixed in the heavens, but aswim in the sky. Some men believe there are other worlds aswim up there, peopled like ours, ignorant of us as we are of them.’
Hen sits up at this, entranced by the idea. ‘Would they look like us, do you think, Father?’
‘Who knows, child. There’s the rub. Who knows? Natural philosophy, it turns out, is not a set of rules as I thought when I left it to other, but a set of hopeful theories, brashly claimed yet each as open to error as the next. What is everything we know, compared to everything we don’t know?’
‘But why does it upset you so, Father? Surely that is a reason to be excited? Think of all that there is left to find out.’
He lays his cheek on the top of her head, as if to steady himself. ‘A youth’s view, Hen. When all the certainties are gone, what are we left with? Fear. Chaos. We sit here, you and I, and we think we’re safe. But we’re moving, moving, all the time, hurtling through an endless space. And we’re not safe, my pudding. Not safe at all.’
CHAPTER NINE
January 1642
‘WE ARE HOLDING OUR BREATH, PUDDING. ALL IS COMING to a head.’
‘How so?’
The coach rattles towards London, and home. Nurse is staying behind to help with the little children while her aunt’s confinement approaches, and Henrietta feels unbound. To home, with Nurse left behind. To streets and corridors, rooms and steps that have known Will’s tread.
Her father says: ‘It is time for the king to choose. He knows it. We know it.’
‘Father, I am woollen-headed from country air. You banished me, remember.’
‘Disobedient pudding cat. How could I forget.’ He smiles, and she is relieved.
If we can laugh at it, we can be friends, she thinks.
‘Here is how the land lies then,’ he says, wearily. ‘This much you know – there were riots against the popish lords and bishops. The bishops, too soft and frightful to brave the mob, stayed at home, crying into their chalices. They wrote a wattle-headed protest. Parliament with no bishops is no Parliament, they bleated, so we shall not recognize it. They forgot, pudding, that Parliament with no bishops means a swing of power in the Lords. Without their vote, the king’s party is outnumbered. The Commons can send bills up and get them passed once more. So they used their new power to arrest the bishops.’
‘Arrest them?’
‘They languish in the Tower yet. Treason, apparently.’
Henrietta sits back in her seat. This is news like a hammer blow.
‘Father, take me to the starting post. Where does each party stand now?’
‘Lord, if I could untangle it I would be feted as a sage. But broadly, taking God from the picture, which one can scarce do, there are three positions forming. Here is the future as the reformers see it: England as a new Venice, with a titular monarch like the Doge, and an oligarchy – Pym, St John and the godly peers, like Saye, Sele and Warwick – pulling the reins. Their king would cede control of the military and government appointments to Parliament. Ranged against them is the king’s party, but it splits in two: cooperation or confrontation. Uphold the Constitution or seek retribution – these are the choices before him. Shall he be a monarch bound by a parliament that keeps him on a tight fiscal leash, yet retain the rights to choose his own counsellors, order his own church and run his own military? Or shall he take action to confound his enemies at Westminster?’
He pauses and looks at her, to make sure she understands. She nods quickly.
‘But why now? Why are we holding our breaths now?’
‘Because with no bishops, the reformers control Parliament again. After the elections in the City, the reformers have built power there. For two years now, since the short parliament gathered, the pendulum has swung back and forth – to the king, to his enemies and back again. From the king’s triumph in November, when the initiative was his, it has swung back to his enemies. This time, the pendulum seems to be wedged tight. With Westminster and the City against him, the king must act.
‘Digby, the king’s adviser, has wriggled like a worm these past weeks to try to suspend Parliament, the king’s sorry finances notwithstanding. All the while, Roxburgh, a meddlesome Scot, and that papist, stirring witch who bears your name, are whispering to the king. “To arms, to arms,” they whisper. “Show them who is king.” As I left to come to Oxford, there was a second reading of a bill to take control of the militia from King to Parliament.’
‘He cannot agree to that, can he?’
‘No, kitten, he cannot. A lesser man, or a bigger man, than King Charles could, perhaps. He cannot. So he finds a way out. How?’
She thinks. The coach shudders beneath her. She hears a growing clamour outside the window, and it feels like cobbles beneath the wheels. The smell, too, seeps under the canvas, rancid after her stay in the country. She puts a kerchief to her nose, swallowing against the retching. She will grow used to it again, in a few hours. Those not born to it are maddened by it, her father says.
Hen unpicks the edge of the cover and peers out. Icy rainwater runs down the canvas, onto her fingers, trickling down her arm. Everything looks so normal. The Thames-side mansions stand stately and somewhat forlorn in the rain; liveried servants cower under overhangs; a man runs past holding his cloak over his head to fend off the rain; a couple of barefoot children stand miserably, lethargically, in a puddle, watching her watching them.
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘Neither does he, I fear. Neither do any of us. He tried a coup in Scotland and it left him with less power than he had before.’
‘Where do you stand now, Father?’ She cannot remember asking him so bluntly before.
; He sits back in his seat, silent for a long minute. He looks drawn in the dark light of the coach. When he speaks, his voice is hushed, and Hen leans forward to catch his words.
‘It may sound fat-witted, Hen, but I do not know any more. The king twists this way and that. He is hard to trust. He is prickly, vindictive. I dislike his way of ruling, and were he a merchant, he would have been locked up for debt long ago. He invokes ancient customs, and stands on his dignity to wrest money from us. He has shown scant respect for Parliament. Yet Parliament is asking too much, and there is the godly tinge to it all. I support the monarchy, but not the monarch. I support the fiscal grievances, but not the godly zeal. The question I have to ask is this: can my position remain tenable, or does it become so much nonsense in these modern times? Can a man sit on the fence any more, or will his arse burn with the sitting?’
What about me? Hen wonders. What do I think? She knows her opinion does not matter – what place is there for a woman’s stance in what is to come? Still, she knows what she believes. That if it comes to a choice between more reform and a return to the Laudian personal rule, she would choose Parliament. A tiny voice whispers in her heart, Father or Ned? Should I survey the heart on matters like this, too, she wonders, or is that womanish thinking?
She says: ‘And all over the city, men like you ask themselves the same question. Can a man play both sides?’
He nods slowly. ‘And now, I will be frank with you, my pudding. This is why I came to get you. You may have been safer at your aunt’s. But I want you with me. I want to see your face in the mornings, and at night. Because I’m all afraid of what’s ahead.’
‘Should I be so?’
‘You’d be a fool not to be. And you’re no fool. You must talk to Sam and Ned, too. You’ve more sense than both together. A family must stand fast in times like these. There is a violent distemper in the body politic, my pudding. And some believe, now, that the only remedy is a blood-letting.’
Later, they are sitting by the fire, just Hen and her father, when a fierce knocking at the door shatters the peace. Hen looks up from her book, frightened. No good news travels this late. Sam and the boys are out; she is yet to see them. She pictures Sam lying broken, a blood crust on his darling face. Harmsworth, rumpled and disturbed, ushers in the visitors.
Tompkins comes first. He is grim-faced but self-important. A messenger. With him is a man Henrietta recognizes as Edmund Waller, the court poet.
‘Apologies, brother, for bursting in on you,’ says Tompkins. ‘May I introduce Edmund Waller? Richard Challoner and Miss Henrietta Challoner.’ They bow, and she bobs back at them, aware of her rumpled, informal clothing.
Waller looks at her over his bow, appraising. She finds his gaze embarrassing.
‘So, brother, we’re here about the five members.’
Challoner looks blank.
‘You haven’t heard,’ says Waller, and he looks at Tompkins, as if questioning his judgement.
‘Clearly,’ says Challoner, nettled. ‘We returned from Oxford not one hour ago.’
‘God’s blood,’ Waller snaps. ‘Briefly, then. Earlier today, His Majesty went to the Commons, armed men at his back, and attempted to arrest five of the most pernicious scoundrels.’
‘Who?’
‘Pym, Hampden, Holles, Haselrige, Strode.’
‘From the chamber itself?’ Challoner asks.
Hen tries to sink into the background. She suspects that if they remember she is there, she will be ordered from the room. She watches Tompkins nod in answer to the question, and watches the slow dawning of the weight of the news on her father’s face.
‘Against all traditions of parliamentary privilege?’ Challoner enquires.
‘They lost their right to that when they attacked their master.’ She starts at the vehemence in Waller’s voice.
She tries to remember what she knows of him. An MP, as well as a poet. She knows his verse, of course. She likes it, even though it is heavy on panegyric. His love poetry is forced and formulaic; but no one can doubt its elegance. A moderate critic when Parliament opened, severe on the fiscal abuses of the personal rule. Cousin to John Hampden, the ship money hero. He must be one of those who have turned monarchist now Parliament has become rabid, she speculates.
‘And did His Majesty succeed?’
‘No,’ Waller says. ‘They fled like rats from a ship.’
‘They were tipped off.’
‘How?’
A shrug.
Tompkins says: ‘The king demanded to know where they were. The Speaker, William Lenthall, replied.’
Tompkins draws himself up. This is clearly a moment of great drama.
Waller jumps in, and Tompkins deflates. ‘He said: “May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here”.’
Hen’s father whistles, as Tompkins says, too loudly: ‘Exactly that.’
‘How brave!’ says Hen, not meaning to speak.
The three turn to her, reminded of her presence.
‘Challoner,’ says Waller. ‘Is this proper for soft feminine ears? I do not want to frighten the charming young lady.’
He bows.
‘She’s in the right, though,’ says Challoner, ignoring him. ‘Brave.’
‘Insolent!’ says Tompkins.
‘Perhaps both,’ Challoner says.
Waller interrupts. ‘The rats are skulking in the City. Tomorrow, the king will come to the Guildhall to talk to the council, and retrieve the rats.’
‘We are heading to the City to the king’s friends,’ says Tompkins. ‘To persuade the moderates of the benefits of loyalty to the king in this matter. Your house is one of the first. Can we persuade you out to talk to some of the aldermen of your company?’
Hen’s father looks at her now, and she remembers the conversation in the coach. He must make his mind up. The time has come, too soon. Oh, too soon!
Waller and Tompkins look at him, heads cocked, eyebrows raised. The silence stretches too long. A log falls from the fire and sizzles in the grate.
Her father looks across at her once more, and smiles. Then he turns to Tompkins and Waller, and he says: ‘Of course, gentlemen. Excuse me, while I dress suitably for the jaunt. Henrietta, chase Harmsworth. Wine for our guests.’
They leave the room together, leaving Tompkins visibly pleased with his judgement in coming to the house, and Waller all impatience to be off.
In the hall, Challoner takes hold of Hen, kisses her cheek and whispers: ‘So, my pudding, it begins.’
PART TWO
CHAPTER TEN
October 1642
NED WAKES. LORD, HE IS COLD. WHERE AM I? HE WONDERS. Suspended in ice. His eyes come into focus. The moon, that’s the moon. Crescent and new; high in the sky. Why so cold?
Sensation creeps back into his body as he comes to, and with it comes the shivering. He trembles and shakes uncontrollably. It can’t be hell. Too cold. Besides, the moon is there, and surely there’s no moon in hell? Stiff and trembling, he propels himself upright. Bonfires dance in his head, and he cries out with the pain. He reaches up to his scalp and finds a lump. Dried blood. He’s hurt. Why? How?
He sits upright, knees drawn up to his chin. He realizes that he is naked. His skin is pocked with goose pimples, and all the hair on his body stands stiffly to attention. His head is throbbing unbearably, and the relentless chattering of his teeth makes the pain worse. Sleepy. That’s it. His head drops down to his chest. If he sleeps, perhaps he will wake up in his own bedroom under the eaves at the Birchs’ house. He will wake, as usual with the oystercatcher’s morning call. ‘Fresh, fresh! Oyster! Oyster!’
What is he sitting on? Mud, cold mud. It squelches as he shifts his buttocks. Cold.
Father. Where are you? Did I say that aloud? he wonders. Which father did he mean, anyway? The celestial one? Or the one with the skin and the blood, and the nose running to redness, and the laugh th
at used to make him giggle until it began to grate. Where are you, Father?
Don’t sleep. If you do, you won’t wake. Ned, Ned. Wake up, you fool. He jerks his head upright.
Where are you? In a field. Why are you here? Don’t know. Where are your clothes?
‘Hello!’ he shouts, or tries to, in a voice that cracks and bends. His ears are ringing, and he can hear his voice inside his head only. Am I deaf? he wonders dispassionately.
Cold. Silence. There are strange, dark shapes in this field. It is lumpy. Why? He squints. I can’t stay here, he thinks. He rocks forward until he is on all fours. The mud oozes, wet and icy between his fingers. Crawling, he draws closer to one of the lumps.
‘Lord save me!’ he cries, recoiling. A man. Or a thing that was once a man. His face is gone, just pulp. Naked, too. His body strangely whole and perfect. Just still and blue-grey in the darkness.
Ned closes his eyes. Shuts the thing out.
He crawls backwards, away from the thing. His feet brush something. Cold flesh. Oh Lord, oh Lord. Another one. He turns to look at it. This time, a serene and unblemished face, but a body ripped almost in two. The guts spill out onto the wet mud. The smell. That’s it. Like the butchers’ yard at Smithfield. If I could swap their heads, they would make one whole person, he thinks.
All the lumps in this field, are they the same? They stretch away into the darkness. Some big mounds, some smaller, lonely shapes.
I am naked in a field of corpses, thinks Ned, with a strange detachment. I am naked in a field of corpses.
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