At Fairfax’s headquarters, his staff bent over the map on the table.
‘My intelligence tells me that Byron has split his forces on either side of the river.’ Fairfax traced the line of the River Weaver. ‘If the thaw comes, his force will be divided.’
‘Do we intend to engage them?’ Brereton asked.
Fairfax shook his head. ‘We’re facing a much greater force and the capability of the Irish veterans is unknown. My intention at this point is to strengthen the garrison at Nantwich and drive them back by attrition rather than show of strength. Richard?’ He turned to his galloper, Richard Ashley. ‘Where is that letter from that braggadocio, Lord Byron, we intercepted today?’ Ashley handed him the paper. ‘Gentlemen, this is who we are facing.’
Fairfax drew himself up to his full height, his lip curled in distaste as he read Byron’s intercepted report out loud.
The assembled men listened in horror as Byron boasted of having slaughtered twenty civilians in the church at the village of Barthomley. After describing how his men had driven the villagers from refuge in the church tower by lighting a fire, he then recounted how twelve of them had been stripped. He had them all ‘...put to the sword, which I find the best way to proceed with these kind of people Byron concluded.
‘What manner of man is this?’ Brereton said in a hushed voice.
‘The man we march to face tomorrow,’ Fairfax said. ‘Good night, gentlemen.’
Byron must have wondered what evil luck had beset him, as the next day the weather turned, melting the snow and thawing the frozen rivers, splitting his force. Intelligence reached the advancing parliamentarians that Byron knew of their advance and was making plans to meet them. Fairfax ordered his men into fighting order and, reinforced by the ragged veterans of Adwalton Moor, they continued the march toward Nantwich.
On a dark, wet, grey winter afternoon, in battle order, the parliamentary forces pushed forward through the hedgerows and narrow lanes. They were just north of the village of Acton when Byron’s infantry came on them in a flanking manoeuvre, attacking both the van and the rear guards. The bulk of Byron’s force, including the cavalry would not be far behind but for the moment they were delayed by the terrain.
Fairfax wheeled his great white horse, his eyes bright. ‘It seems our foe has found a way across the river. If he wants a battle, he shall have one. Coulter, take your men and aid with the rear-guard. We’ll take our positions and deal with what lies before us.’
Adam returned to his men. He looked at their sullen faces but didn’t have time for inspiring speeches. Now was the time for action. He glanced at Hewitson.
‘To me,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the scurvy, murdering devils.’
After the months of the tedium of garrison duties and convoy escorts, Adam’s blood stirred and he heard once more the call to battle and knew the rightness of his cause.
He wheeled his horse and taking a hedge at the gallop, drew his sword. He heard the cry behind him and knew his men followed. Fairfax’s rear-guard had been pushed back and were hard pressed as Adam’s cavalry came up in their support. The foot soldiers made way, letting the horses through.
They hit the weary royalist infantry hard. Byron’s men balked, wavered, and turned and ran. Adam stopped his men from going in pursuit, turning them back to go to the aid of the beleaguered parliamentary infantry in the centre.
For two hours the battle raged in the fields between Acton and Nantwich. The royalist forces, hampered by the narrow hedgerows and fields, unable to manoeuvre and unassisted by their own fleeing cavalry, surrendered to a man. At the end of the day, Byron had been driven back to Chester and over a thousand of his men had been taken prisoner.
That night Adam sat with his officers in the small parlour of the farmhouse that served as their billet for the night. They had counted their losses as two men dead and fifteen slightly wounded.
Like many of the men, Hewitson’s wife, Mary, followed the drum, and she ensured they all had a hot meal and a dry bed. Now she sat beside the fire, mending her husband’s shirt, torn by a pike in the affray. It presented a domestic scene at odds with the work of the day.
Adam sat apart from the others, staring into the depths of the fire, his fingers playing with the chain of the silver locket that hung from his neck. Only when he was alone did he take it off and dare open the catch and touch the lock of nut- brown hair that lay curled within it.
‘Coulter.’ Hewitson’s voice roused him from his reverie and he looked up. ‘Coulter,’ Hewitson drew on his pipe and stared ruminatively at the ceiling. ‘You did well today. We reckons as how you’ll do.’
Chapter 12
Preswood Hall
April 1644
The spotted fever that had taken Simon did not spread to anyone else at Preswood, but over the winter a chill settled on Joan’s chest. Her rattling cough echoed around the cold, cheerless house, casting a pall that even Bess and Robin’s happiness could not relieve.
Spring brought the return of some warmth to the cold, damp countryside, but the first budding of the daffodils and primroses went unseen by Joan. Her world had become her bedchamber and Perdita knew that the balance of her friend’s life was now measured in days not weeks.
She and Bess took it in turns to sit with Joan, occupying their time with reading to her or sewing quietly while she slept.
Joan occupied the best bedchamber in the house, and even though Geoffrey had been dead nearly two years, his presence still lingered, a unicorn’s horn hung over the door and strange statues of sinuous dancers crowded the mantelpiece. Joan’s unfinished portrait of Perdita and Simon stood propped on a table, a painful reminder of what might have been.
‘Perdita.’
Perdita looked up from the account book she was working on.
Joan gestured to the portrait. ‘Do you ever think about Adam? Do you wonder where he is and why he has sent me no word?’
Perdita turned her gaze on the portrait. Joan had completed the figure of Simon, but her own likeness remained little more than a ghost beneath the weight of Simon’s painted hand. She remembered the likeness Adam had sketched of her and she swallowed back the tears.
Thoughts of Adam Coulter too often intruded on her waking and her dreams. Memories of the snatched moments of intimacy conflicted with guilt over Simon. If he had lived would she have ever learned to love him, the way she loved Adam Coulter or would Adam have always been there, those cold, grey eyes challenging her loyalty?
‘I have had other matters to concern me,’ she said.
Joan moved her gaze from the portrait to scan Perdita’s face.
‘Perdita, I have done Adam a great wrong and it is preying on my conscience. Do you have pen and ink? Please write for me.’
Perdita smoothed out a sheet of paper and dipped her pen in the ink.
Joan pulled herself up on the bolsters. ‘Before I begin, you must swear to me you will never repeat what you hear to anyone, not even Bess?’
Puzzled, Perdita agreed and Joan sank back and closed her eyes.
My dearest Adam,
This is the hardest letter I have ever written but I know I am dying and I cannot face the Lord in the knowledge that I carry a secret to my grave that is your right to share.
When I was a girl of sixteen I was sent to Court to the household of the Queen. There I was seduced by a man who flattered me with poems and professions of love, but when I found I was with child he abandoned me, leaving me to the approbation of my parents. I was sent north to a distant kinswoman to give birth to the child of my shame. The child was left with this woman to take her name and I was returned, heartbroken at having to abandon my baby, to Marchants. When I contracted the rheumatic fever that was to plague me all my life, penance for my sin perhaps, I begged my parents to bring my child to me and to my surprise they relented and my brother, one of the very best of men, went to fetch the child. The child’s father had been a boon companion of my brother and it was agreed between them that my brother
would own the child as his. Thus you came to Marchants, Adam, as the bastard son of my brother to be brought up with your cousins as befitted you. How he prevailed upon his wife to accept the child, I still do not know, and she let her displeasure be known. All I, your mother, could do was watch over you through your childhood. Yours has not been an easy life and I was not always able to protect you from the wanton cruelties that a baseborn child must endure, but despite all you have suffered, you have grown into a man of whom I am proud.
I know the first question you would ask of me is to know the identity of your father and that I will not tell you. Nothing would be gained by that knowledge. He is long dead and those few who knew or suspected are also in heaven. My brother was as good a father to you as that man would ever have been and I will not take that from you. I have known great happiness with my beloved Geoffrey and that is my wish for you, to wed the one person you love. I will leave you well provided for. That distant kinswoman in the north country bequeathed me her entire estate at Strickland and it is yours. Her name was Ann Coulter, the name you bear. God watch over you as I will always do. Your ever-loving mother, Joan Clifford.
Joan lay back on the bolsters, her face grey with exhaustion. Perdita stared at the words on the page, trying to imagine what it meant to carry such a secret.
‘How?’ she began, ‘How could you bear it?’
‘I was there, Perdita. I saw my son grow into a man. That was all I asked. Do you think,’ she grasped at her breath, ‘do you think Adam will forgive me?’
Perdita looked at the dying woman, her mind turning over how she would react to such news. She would be angry, very angry, that this secret had been concealed from her.
‘He will want to know about his father,’ she said.
Joan turned her face away. ‘His father is dead, Perdita.’
‘Joan, this is a matter you should have rightly told him long before now,’ she said. ‘You had ample opportunity when he was here.’
‘I intended to, but,’ Joan swallowed, tears trailing from her eyes on to the embroidered covers. ‘I could never… bring myself to do so. I suppose I am a coward, Perdita and now it is too late. It must be this way. When you see him, tell him that I have always loved him.’
‘He knows that, Joan.’
‘But not why… he needs to know why. Promise… promise me you will see he gets this letter. You must give it into his hand yourself. You must explain what I cannot.’
Perdita took the dying woman’s hand in her own and made the promise.
Joan closed her eyes. Perdita sanded and sealed the letter and placed it safely in a secure place in her bedchamber. When she returned to Joan, she knew that this beloved woman would be dead by morning.
Joan’s letter lay in a locked box in Perdita’s bed chamber while Perdita pondered what to do about it. She had promised to deliver it into Adam’s hand, but her own coward’s soul quailed at the thought of seeing him, let alone being the bearer of such ill news. She hoped that he may come himself, riding past on some errand, but as the spring campaigning began their only regular visitor was Robin and he had no news of Adam. She still delayed, using the weather as an excuse and justifying her failure to ride to Warwick on the muddy roads and beating spring rain.
It was well into May with the breath of fine weather taking away her last excuse, before Perdita set out for Warwick, riding pillion behind the faithful Ludovic. The last time she had taken this road had been on a quest to liberate Simon, and now it seemed to Perdita that the road would forever be associated with trouble and sadness.
She left the horse with Ludovic and once more walked the cobbled streets up to the castle, every step heavy with grief and with fear of how Adam would take the news. She had not dared let herself think about Adam, as if to do so would be unfaithful to Simon’s memory. Simon, who had given her his heart, without condition, knowing she did not, could not, return that love.
At the end of the street, she stopped, looking up at the forbidding grey walls of the castle, formulating the words she would use to deliver the news of Joan’s death, handing him the letter. She would not stay to see his face, feel his wrath, sense his grief. It was enough she knew the contents of the letter. She would hand him the letter and leave.
At the gate she asked to see Captain Coulter.
‘Coulter?’ the guard paused, scratching his unshaven chin. ‘He’s gone north, hasn’t he, Sam?’
Sam nodded in agreement. ‘Gone these five months past.’
Perdita stared from one to the other. ‘Gone? But he sent no word…’
Why would he send word? He owed nobody at Preswood any particular favour, except perhaps Joan and, indeed a note to his aunt would have been politic. But this was war and courtesies such as that were not part of the day-to-day life of a soldier. Or did the truth lie deeper? Had he stayed away thinking her wed to Simon?
The two soldiers looked at her, undisguised curiosity in their gazes.
‘Do you know where he has gone?’ Perdita enquired.
The first soldier shrugged. ‘Who’s to say? I tell ’ee what. The Colonel be in. He’ll be able to tell ’ee better than we.’
The governor of Warwick Castle, Colonel Purefoy, received her in the same elegant oak-panelled study last occupied by Adam. She remembered the concern in his eyes, his swift, sure hands, guiding her to a chair. His touch.
‘Mistress Gray.’ The Colonel’s brisk tone returned her to the present. ‘What business do you have with me?’
‘My business is with Adam Coulter. Your men tell me he has gone north.’
Purefoy nodded. ‘At his request, he left in the new year to join Fairfax. It seemed a sensible decision. He was not one for garrison life.’ The colonel pursed his lips as if remembering some incident that had illustrated Adam’s unsuitability to remain at the castle. ‘Do you mind me asking, what’s your business with him?’
Something in the flick of his eyebrow made Perdita wonder if Purefoy suspected that she had come to foist an unwanted pregnancy upon Adam.
‘I am his kinswoman,’ Perdita extended their relationship, ‘and I am, unhappily, the bearer of sad news concerning the death of a close member of his family.’
Purefoy almost looked disappointed. He shook his head. ‘Death is all around us, is it not, Mistress Gray? It seems to me my task is forever dealing with the death of somebody’s son or brother or father. However, if you wish to send on a letter, I have a supply convoy for the north leaving in the morning. The letter can be entrusted to Captain Burns.’
Perdita bit her lip, conscious that her disappointment must seem ill disguised. ‘It is not a matter I can entrust to someone else, Colonel.’
Purefoy spread his hands. ‘There it is, Mistress Gray. I am afraid Coulter is unlikely to return to Warwick and where exactly he is now, I am unable to say. Except that when last I heard news from the north, Fairfax was laying siege to York. The offer stands if you wish to send a missive with Captain Burns, ensure it is in his hands at first light tomorrow.’
Perdita took her leave of Colonel Purefoy and trudged back to the inn where Ludovic waited.
‘He’s not here, Ludovic. He’s gone north to be with Fairfax. I suppose there is nothing I can do but wait until he comes south again.’
Ludovic looked at her. ‘Forgive my speaking plain, Mistress Gray. What is there to hold you here? Go with the supply wagons yourself.’
Perdita stared at him. ‘I can’t leave Bess,’ she said.
Ludovic shrugged. ‘Mistress Clifford has Lieutenant Marchant and I to watch over her. You will be safe enough with the supply train,’ Ludovic said. ‘It would simply be a matter of delivering the letter and returning back with it. You will only be gone a short while.’
Perdita bit her lip as her mind worked through Ludovic’s suggestion. Did she dare? The worse that could happen was that Adam would hear her news and politely put her on the next transport south. At best? Perdita glanced up at the big man. Ludovic knew her better than she knew he
rself; nothing tied her to Warwickshire, at least nothing that couldn’t spare her for a few weeks.
‘Dare I?’ she asked aloud.
‘You know the answer to that question, Mistress Gray,’ Ludovic said. ‘Take a room for the night and pen a note to Mistress Clifford. I will take it and return with some coin and baggage for you.’
‘It’s a two hour ride.’
Ludovic shrugged. ‘I will stay and see you safely bestowed on the convoy in the morning.’
Perdita begged a pen and paper from the landlord of the inn and wrote a short note to Bess, explaining that Joan had entrusted the letter for her to deliver personally and she had no choice but to go north to try and find Adam and fulfil her promise to Joan. All being well, she would return within the month.
Alone in the bedchamber of the inn, Perdita watched Ludovic ride away and pondered the folly of the quest she was about to undertake.
Clutching a bundle containing a clean gown, a change of linen and her comb, a blanket and some food, packed by Bess along with a note expressing her love and concern and praying that Perdita return soon and safely, Perdita strode down the streets to find the supply wagons assembling in the field below the castle.
Ludovic had also passed on a bag of coins and a small, fiendishly sharp knife. ‘For food,’ he had said, but the warning gaze he fixed on her told her it served a second purpose. Her own protection.
Amidst the scurrying figures, the cursing wagoners and bored soldiers, she sought out the harassed young officer whose task it was to organise the convoy. He had just despatched two burly troopers to deal with two women who were brawling, apparently over possession of a piece of cloth.
‘Captain Burns?’
With one eye still on the fracas, he half-turned toward her. ‘Mistress?’
‘Colonel Purefoy has granted me permission to join your convoy.’ While not exactly the truth, she saw no point in bothering Purefoy on such a trivial matter.
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