by Smith, Skye
"From the Lindsey of Lincolnshire. We were on our way to Southampton to seek passage to the New World, but the armies got in our way so we stopped here to wait for the armies to go away, and for the weather to improve so ships will be sailing again."
"Is life so hard in Lindsey that you would rather sleep in earth huts?” Daniel asked.
"It gets colder every winter,” the farmer replied, "and there is less sustenance every winter. Less food, less fire wood, more snow, more ice, and for a year now, ever more violence. We do not believe in violence. We refuse to raise our hands in anger, and we forgive those who trespass against us."
Daniel now had his suspicions as to who these folk were. They were likely some of the Lindsey Familists. Familists were educated townsfolk who gave up the sinful living of their town life and sought the sanctity and purity of the country life. No wonder they were well spoken. No wonder they seemed so poor. There was nothing saintly or pure about country life, so life would be very hard for these dreamers. "Are you of the Family of Love, or from some other group of Anabaptists?” Daniel asked. His own village in the Fens claimed to be Anabaptists to hide the fact that they were not actually Christians. He therefore had a fair knowledge of other Anabaptist groups.
"You have heard of the Family of Love?” the farmer asked. "Then you will understand why we can be of no help to you in punishing these men. My sisters have already forgiven them, as is our way."
"Your sisters!” Jack exclaimed. "You let these sons of nobs rape your sisters, and then you don't want to take your revenge! What kind of men are you?"
"Er, Jack, calm down,” Daniel said. "In their holy collective everyone is a brother or a sister, and they preach nonviolence."
"Exactly,” the farmer confirmed. "I am brother James. Our Family of Love follows the true teachings of Jesus. Peace be upon all of thee, including those four misguided youths. Do with them as thee sees fit, but know that we have already forgiven them."
"Was the rape the only thing to forgive, or did they thieve as well?"
"We have nothing worth thieving,” brother James replied. "They searched everywhere for weapons and horses, but we have none. They took some of our food, but since they ate it immediately then this was not theft, but hunger."
"Brother James, I would have the women speak for themselves,” Daniel said as he dismounted. "for it was they who were assaulted, and it will be they who may bear a child in ninemonth."
"We will welcome any child,” Brother James replied, "for there is no such thing as a bastard in our community. Go then and speak with them."
Daniel nodded and walked towards the women. In his own village there was no such thing as a bastard, so now he understood even more about this community of Familists. There were now six women because two elder women had joined the younger four. "I understand that you have forgiven these men, and that is your right, but I have wider responsibilities than you. For instance, what if they have done this to other women? What if they do it to others tomorrow? All I need is a signed statement from the victims, and the names of the witnesses, and these men will be held accountable. Without it they will be free to do it again."
An elder women began to speak but Daniel cut her off with a few choice words in Frisian, the second language of the east coast of Lincolnshire. "Keep your peace wise one, until the victims have finished speaking."
"You speak the mother of tongues?” the elder asked.
"I am from the village of Wellenhay near Ely. The old ways thrive in our clan. Now keep your peace and let the young ones speak.” As Daniel said this, he could tell that none of the four young women could understand the old tongue so he switched back to English. "I want each of you to tell me what I should say to their next victims, or to the mothers of their next victims if their next victim is a girl rather than a woman."
The four looked at each other, and then at their brothers who were still standing near to the very four gentlemen who had raped them, and then at the gentlemen themselves. They said nothing.
"I have met gentlemen such as these before,” Daniel continued. "They have a demon inside them and many such demons have rallied to the king's side. Have you heard of the town of Brentford up on the Thames near London. Many of the king's gentlemen descended on that town and they looted and they raped, and when their lust was sated, they killed their victims. They killed the children in front of their mother's eyes, and then they killed the mother's in front of their husband's eyes, and then they killed the husbands. Do such gentlemen deserve forgiveness or should they be punished?"
Again there was no answer, but at least the women’s faces showed disgust and shock at what he had told them. "The demon makes them the most charming of men, but also makes them pitiless. They never ask permission, but when they are caught out they ask forgiveness. Good folk like yourselves cannot imagine such evil as the demon which lives inside of them, and so they usually forgive them. Again and again they do evil, and again and again they are forgiven. I am not asking you to withdraw your forgiveness. I simply ask that you tell the true story so that other good folk can be warned about the demon inside of these men."
One of the young women stepped towards him and said, "If you have pen and ink, I will write my statement and sign it."
"No you mustn't,” said the elder and pulled her back by the elbow.
"Yes she must,” said another of the young women, "as must I. What if these men had not found us four out gathering, but one of the girls. Sister Millie is but twelve, yet I truly believe that they would have torn into her. I will sign and then I will pray for them.
Precious daylight was lost while the women, all four women, and one of the elder women, wrote out their statements and then signed them. There were eight brothers, fourteen sisters, and nine children in this hamlet and none of the brothers agreed to them signing, but they were kept at bay by Jack's threatening looks.
"That paper will be the undoing of us,” brother James complained. "This land belongs to the Bishop of Winchester, and those four men are the bishop's men. The least I expect is to be hounded out of our squatters hamlet, and in the dead of winter."
Daniel soothed his fears with, "The bishop's have problems of their own. Colonel Waller has captured Farnham, Winchester, and Chichester, so many of their grand houses and their fields will be abandoned this winter. Your squatter's hamlet in these fields will be the least of their worries.” He turned to Jack and handed him the scroll. "Jack, we are within three hours of Farnham, so the rest of us will be safe enough on the road without your escort. I would ask that you and your squad take these four back to Chichester and hand them over to Waller along with my warning that the gentlemen of quality that he is releasing under warrant, are not keeping to their warrants."
"You want us to ride all the way back to Chichester?” Jack asked, incredulous. "Just to deliver these four bastards up to Waller. Why not hang 'em here and now?” At his words the women stepped back from them and wailed.
"Nay, you will not harm them. I want you to ride to Waller to deliver up my warning. The warning is everything, while these four are just the proof. Waller must stop setting royalist prisoners free just because they promise to behave.” Daniel stared at Jack until he nodded in agreement. With practice he was getting better at out staring the man's ravaged face. The secret was to stare at just his good right eye, and ignore all else, especially his mouth.
So it was that the company parted company. Daniel, the gunners and the ten militia tradesmen towards Farnham, and the dozen hardened veterans with their four prisoners back towards Chichester. It was well after dark when Daniel reached Farnham castle, but he kept his promise to the navy gunners. They each had a bed all to themselves that night. A bed that did not swing with the movement of a ship. A bed, yes, but without a bed warmer.
* * * * *
"So we are all agreed?” Daniel asked of all the various men standing about. Some were Waller's officers in charge of the garrison at Farnham Castle, some were the city elders of F
arnham who had asked for the castle to be rendered indefensible, some were Daniel's militia apprentice bricklayers and stone masons, and some were the gunners. "This northeast tower is what we will pull down."
"I still say that we should pull down the bastion next to the gate,” a city elder spoke out, as all were free to do.
"Nay, too much work,” one of the apprentices pointed out. "The foundations of the northeast tower have already been damaged so it will be the easiest by far."
"If it must be done, then I agree with your choice of the northeast tower,” the castellan told them. "It would be like leaving the back gate open so even if the royalists lock themselves in the bastion, they cannot protect their horses. Without their horses, they are just infantry wearing the wrong boots."
"Right then,” Boomer called out while dropping his hands away from cupping his ears to help him to hear. "Let's get on with it."
"You must not use the bell again,” one of the elders reminded them. "Another blast will split it asunder and then the town will be without an alarm."
At this news the gunners all stared at Daniel. He was the expert, or at least, he had done this before. Daniel replied, "In truth, since we are here to experiment, I was going to try other, cheaper, lighter vessels than cast bells. As we speak, some of my men are out buying up an assortment of old cups, pots, and kettles.” He was in a bad mood. Everyone expected him to know what he was doing, yet he had barely a clue. Once again he stared up at the tower he was expected to demolish. Though the keep was round, the four bastion towers were all built like high, slender pyramids with walls that sloped in on each side. His stone mason and his bricklayer had warned him that all of the towers were well designed and well built. Because of the slight inward slope to the walls, the wall would not be easy to topple out, because the great weight of each side was holding the two adjoining sides firmly in place.
They walked along the outside of the keep to reach the northeast tower and then all of them gathered around the apprentices who had begun to chip away and dig away the rubble at the base of the tower. At some time in the distant past, some army had tried to undermine this tower during a siege, but must have given up. The damage the miners had done had not been repaired properly with cut stone. Instead the loose rubble of the mining had been pressed back into place, and without mortar.
A clanging behind them made everyone turn. A handful of men were approaching carrying every likely old metal container they could buy. Behind them was a man carrying a small keg of powder on his shoulder.
"Is this far enough in?” one of the digging apprentices asked.
Daniel walked over, knelt down, and shoved his arm into the hole beneath the great stone wall as far as it would go. He then reached up and felt the ceiling of the hole for any crevasse that would tell him that they were behind the outer layer of stone. "Aye, that's deep enough, but now chip away at the ceiling and try to loosen the mortar behind this first stone.” Once he was standing again he reached for the smallest of the metal vessels... a pewter cup. "We'll try the smallest first and work up."
Boomer laughed. "A cup of powder? To blow down a stone wall? You must be jesting. We use four cups to shoot a twelve pound ball."
"We'll keep doubling the powder until it works,” Daniel told him. "Besides, your four cups throw a twelve pound ball at least a mile. We only want to move these cut stones a foot or two. If we blast them further, they may land on the alehouse roof. It would be a tragedy to lose the closest drinking place.” The men around him guffawed, but agreed.
Daniel prepared the charge, simply by filling the cup with gunpowder, pressing it down with coarse cloth, and then setting the fuse. As he did so he explained what should happen. "If I spread gunpowder on the ground it just burns and fizzles and causes both invisible and white smoke. We need the shape of the cup to force all of the powder together so that it all burns at once and creates all of its smoke at once, and then sends that smoke at high speed all in the same direction. I will place the cup in the hole so that it faces the crevasse behind that cut stone, and then we will fill the hole with sand. When I light it, the sand will fly out, and the cup may be torn to pieces so we must stand well back and out of the line of fire of that hole. Hopefully enough of the smoke will fill the crevasse to push the stone outward and make the crevasse wider."
They set and shot the first charge. Other than a lot of noise, dust and smoke, nothing seemed to happen. The apprentice carefully ran his hand across the ceiling of the hole and then said, "The stone didn't move, but all of the mortar behind it has now given way. I can almost fit my hand in behind the stone."
Doubling the powder for the next shot meant stuffing a tankard. They couldn't have used the cup again anyway, for it was now all twisted and torn. It was a good thing that they all stood against the wall to the side of the hole, for when the second shot went off, anyone who had been standing in front of the hole would have been blown down by the cloud of stinging grit. This time the apprentice called out that the stone had moved an inch out from the wall, and the stone above it had moved out a half an inch.
"Good enough,” Daniel told everyone. "Now we need shots like those behind every major stone we can. Everyone get digging, except the lads who brought the tankard. You lot go back and fetch us a dozen of them tankards, old ones, cheap ones."
"Why more small shots?” Boomer asked. "Why not just keep using bigger and bigger shots in that first hole until that part of the wall falls down."
"Because we want the whole tower to fall down,” Daniel replied. "If we do one big one, then only part of the wall will fall, leaving the rest of the wall too dangerous to tunnel into. I'll use the tankards to create at least six or eight spaces inside the wall for larger charges, and then blow the larger ones all at the same time."
Most of the local men became bored with watching and went about their business in the castle or in town. Daniel promised them to peel the church bell before he set off the final charge, so they could come and watch, or hide under a table. Meanwhile he had the gunners take turns preparing the holes and setting the charges. Within two hours they had loosened the foot stones all along the wall by digging and blowing eight holes.
"If two cups of powder moves a stone an inch, how much powder should I use to move them two feet?” Daniel asked his gunners. Each of them had different answers ranging from eight cups to twenty. It was the size of the commonly available soup kettle that decided them on twelve cups. They each set to work on preparing the kettles of powder and placing them inside the expanded holes and facing up into the expanded crevasse behind the loosened stones. They had learned with the tankards to lift the vessel up on a pile of sand to be as close to the opening of the crevasse as possible, and this they now did with the kettles. When all were ready, they sent a lad to ring the church bell, the cracked and scorched church bell.
The entire garrison came out to watch, and with them were half the town. There was a delay while Daniel sent them all away to find something to cover their heads; battle helmets, pots, pans, or whatever. In the mean time they had run two ropes, one from each of the corners of the tower and at an angle outwards so as to clearly mark the danger area. The six gunners, Daniel and the castellan each held a burning torch and at the same time they lit one of the fuses and then ran like rabbits along the walls to get behind the ropes. "Down on the ground. Cover your eyes and ears!” the gunners yelled. Despite the constant warnings, people kept taking peeks to see how far down the fuses had burned.
Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff, Whumphff went the charges sounding like muffled cannon fire. Muffled yes, but you could feel every one of them in your chest and body as if your chest was a drum being pounded. A cloud of dust rose higher and wider than the towers. A dust not just formed of grit and grains of sand, but of shards of rock, and of boulders the size of a small cannon balls.
The main reason for choosing the northeast tower was because it was the furthest from the village over by the main
gate, and now the townsfolk blessed that decision. "My shed,” one of the locals wailed and pointed. His goat shed was about two hundred yards from the tower, and it had just collapsed under the force of wind, dust, and rock. If they had blown the gate bastion instead of this one, half the buildings in the village would have been damaged.
"I think we were overgenerous with the powder,” Boomer stated the obvious while they all waited for the dust cloud to settle or blow away. "I'm mighty glad the kettles were too small for more.” People were beginning to point at each other and laugh, for everyone's hair, face, and clothing were matted with dust. Laughs became sneezes and coughs and then laughs again. Eventually the dust cloud cleared enough for them to see the tower again, or rather, to not see the tower.
It was the apprentice mason who explained, in his strong young earnest voice, what had happened. "The lowest six feet of stones of the front wall were blasted out of the wall as blocks and shards and dust. The stones above the blasted stones then had nothing to hold them up, so they fell straight down. The stones of the other three sloped sides had been pressing against the front wall which suddenly was no longer there, so they lost their balance and fell towards the falling front wall. I see it but I don't believe it.” What he was staring at was the empty space where minutes ago had stood the tall, slender pyramid tower, but now was nothing but a mound of stones, rock, fill and rubble, while above the mound was a huge opening in the round wall of the castle keep.
The castellan was brushing off his face and clothes as he said, "Damn, it will take my men a month to move all of that loose stone out of the gap in the walls."
"Don't you believe it,” Daniel told him. He called the village elders to him. They were also brushing themselves off. "I want you to spread the word all around that this cut and faced stone is free for the taking, but only for the next three days. After that a price per cartload will be charged.” The elders raced away carrying their news. Cut stone worth a fortune was being given away, and they wanted their own carters to be first in line. While that excitement was stirring the townsfolk, Daniel and the other officers walked slowly, still dusting themselves, towards the closest alehouse.