The Licence of War

by Claire Letemendia

  “I haven’t, Judith, in as long as we’ve been mourning, though it might have solaced us. Are you afraid to get another child?” he asked, remembering how he had felt. Time had blunted the edges of his bitterness, and now he thought a new life would bring them closer together; he missed his wife’s body, as much out of affection as habit.

  “I don’t wish to have any more children.”

  The finality in her voice shocked him. “You would contravene God’s law and my rights as your husband.”

  “That’s why I am begging. You can say no.”

  He clapped on his hat. “It’s not the moment to talk. Be sure and fasten the bolts on the windows, and don’t answer the door. I promise not to disturb you tonight.”

  “Thank you, Giles,” she said, as if he had accepted her wish.

  ——

  The gallery looked cosier to Draycott on this mild April evening, as he waited for Sir Montague and Lady Isabella. Candles glowed in sconces on the walls, and the vivid colours of the tapestries were muted by shadow. To distract himself from thinking about Judith, he began to peruse a stack of books on the window seat. They were in Latin; Sir Montague was schooled in more than wine, he supposed. The slenderest of them, bound in purple calfskin and embossed with gilt letters, was Ovid’s Remedia Amoris. During his Cambridge days, he had read The Metamorphoses, though his tutor had deemed some of Ovid’s works immoral and had forbidden them to the students. Intrigued by the title, Draycott opened the book. On the flyleaf was a handwritten dedication in flowery script: “In the hope that you may be inspired to forget the past and embrace the future. I remain, as ever, your faithful George, Lord Digby,” and beneath it, “Christmastide, 1643.”

  Draycott snapped the book shut. Sir Montague’s faithful George was one of Parliament’s chief enemies, and Veech might call this evidence of Sir Montague’s guilt in the affair of the barrels. Or was it? They knew Sir Montague did trade with Oxford Royalists. But faithful George hinted at more than a business relationship. And what past was Lord Digby urging him to forget?

  Draycott heard footsteps and the swish of skirts. He restored the book to the pile and hurried to station himself in front of Lady Isabella’s favourite tapestry, pretending to admire it.

  She entered with Lucy. “Mr. Draycott, Sir Montague had an unexpected appointment in Whitehall, and had no chance to send you word. He was obliged to go out: the Earl of Pembroke is a valued customer, and most partial to my husband’s claret.”

  “No matter, your ladyship,” Draycott said. “I’ll look forward to the pleasure of his company on some other occasion.”

  “Please stay, sir, if my company won’t bore you. Over these past weeks I attended a beloved friend in his last illness, and I am in want of cheerful conversation.”

  He reconsidered, noticing the hollowness to her cheeks, and the shadows beneath her eyes. “Then I shall, my lady, and I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Our sorrows can’t compare: you suffered the death of a child, while my dear Mr. Cotterell was an old man who had lived a fruitful and contented life. Now, let us eat.”

  They went into a parlour on the same floor where a round table was set for three. A bright candelabrum illuminated the gleaming plates, and cutlery, and crystal glasses. On the parlour walls he saw not tapestries but two portraits of a dour, elderly couple in high ruffs. “Sir Montague’s late parents,” she explained. “They held the wine trade in contempt, though they were not too proud to live off his profits. He derives a perverse satisfaction from tippling under their noses. I find them disconcerting, myself: their eyes appear to follow one about – an artist’s trick, in the angle of the pupils. Lucy, remove Sir Montague’s place, and then you may be at your leisure,” she told her maid.

  Draycott resolved to enjoy the meal, though he knew how Judith would detest him supping in such intimacy with her ladyship, even if Greenhalgh was present to serve them. The food tasted as delectable as the wine: speckled trout in a butter and caper sauce; a dish of widgeon stewed with prunes; and a syllabub.

  Lady Isabella talked about Sir Montague’s clients in Parliament, and his sympathy for the Earl of Pembroke, who led a solitary existence. Then she switched to politics. “I gather that Lord Essex feels himself slighted, these days, by the Committee of Both Kingdoms,” she remarked, as Draycott ate his syllabub. “He and General Waller behave no better than quarrelling schoolboys! He has claimed that Waller’s victory at Cheriton will not signify unless he is given men and materiel to augment his own army for an attack on His Majesty’s garrisons around Oxford. But it’s my guess that Parliament will give Waller his pick of the cavalry and of London’s Trained Bands, and leave Essex yet more discontented. They should beware: their squabbles could cost us the war.”

  “Your ladyship is well versed in military affairs,” Draycott said. “My Judith can’t bear to read the broadsheets. She’s sickened by the bloodthirsty atrocities reported there.”

  “They’re often wild exaggerations of the truth or pure invention. Nevertheless, they are a powerful weapon. Infinite money may be the sinews of war, as Cicero wrote, but the nourishment of hatred is as vital, to keep the populace engaged. And broadsheets are cheap to print and easy to distribute.”

  A stunning thought came to Draycott: might the Latin books be hers and Lord Digby her faithful George? This would fit with Veech’s interest in her. “Are you familiar with the works of Cicero, my lady?”

  “I haven’t read his whole opus – he can be dry, at times.” She settled back in her chair, fiddling with the stem of her glass. “What inclined you to Parliament’s side, Mr. Draycott?”

  “His Majesty’s arbitrary rule and the religious meddling of his queen. I wouldn’t like to see our country papist again.” Draycott hesitated. “Sir Montague must be of a similar view.”

  “My husband is and has always been a businessman. He sells to whoever will pay his price, as you are aware from his dealings in Oxford.” Her face softened, and she rested her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands. “I should have asked: how is your wife, sir, in her bereavement?”

  “She was the strongest of us at first, yet recently she has been inconsolable.”

  “She is a woman – she had to be strong when you were not, and now she has to vent her feelings.” Draycott smiled at Lady Isabella’s perspicacity. “Have you been married long, sir?”

  “Ten years. I was assigned as clerk to her father at eighteen, after I was up at Cambridge. He helped me gain admission to Middle Temple, and once called to the Bar, I joined his practice. He had planned for me to wed Judith, his sole child. Upon his death I would inherit both the practice and a house of his, which I did. Judith’s mother preferred to maintain a separate household.”

  “Some marriages are happier in the absence of a mother-in-law,” Lady Isabella said, laughing.

  Draycott laughed also. “In my own case, I have to agree. How were you introduced to Sir Montague, my lady?”

  “Through my former guardian. I was orphaned young: my father died before my birth and my mother when I was a little girl.” Draycott listened on, but a peculiar sensation began nagging at him: as though there was a third presence in the room apart from those he could see. Then abruptly he caught his breath. “What is it, sir?” she asked.

  He pointed at the portrait of Sir Montague’s father on the wall behind her. “I could have sworn that … his eyes moved.”

  She twisted in her seat and glowered at the portrait. “I have implored Sir Montague to hang those canvases in his dressing closet, but he will not do it. He is entertained by my dislike of them. Come, sir, let’s go to the gallery. We shall have a sip of Malmsey, to soothe our nerves.”

  “No, thank you, my lady,” said Draycott. “My nerves are a sure symptom of weariness. I should go home.” As before, she descended with him to the entrance hall. “Pardon my silly fright,” he apologised, now thoroughly ashamed.

  “It’s that pair of baleful ghosts. But you must not let them scare y
ou. Don’t be a stranger to us.” When he had put on his cloak, she gave him her hand; and as he brushed his lips against her knuckles, he could smell again that exotic perfume on her skin.

  “Goodnight to you, my lady. Please convey my greetings to Sir Montague, and my regret that he could not join us.”

  “I shall, and goodnight, sir,” she said.

  Draycott walked out onto the Strand, which was quiet save for some militiamen steering away a bedraggled peddler, an incongruous figure in this rich neighbourhood. How tragic that Lady Isabella’s guardian had not chosen her a younger husband, he thought. If the copy of Remedia Amoris were hers, might Lord Digby have been her lover? Was Digby urging her to forget their past, and embrace a future with Sir Montague? Or did the book belong to her husband, and was Digby counselling the widowed Sir Montague about his marriage to Lady Isabella? Whatever the truth, Draycott knew that he ought to tell Veech about the dedication. But the consequences for her petrified him.

  VIII.

  Tom and Adam tethered their horses by an ancient humpbacked bridge that spanned the River Severn. They were some miles east of Shrewsbury, in desolate countryside. Tom strained to catch the thud of hooves, but could hear only ewes bleating to their lambs in the pasture, and the forlorn cawing of rooks. He pulled off his gloves to wipe his sweaty hands on the front of his coat. “Why the hell did he insist on this godforsaken spot when we could have met at the camp,” he muttered to Adam.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  After an hour or so of waiting, Adam gestured to the far side of the bridge: two riders were approaching at a gallop. “Look at him,” Tom said, as the Spaniards slowed pace and crossed the bridge towards them. “Isn’t the likeness incredible?”

  “That it is,” gasped Adam.

  The Spaniards reined in and leapt from their horses. The valet bowed, but de Zamora only beckoned to Tom, and said, “Come.”

  They walked together onto the bridge, leaving their servants behind.

  “Were you at Chipping Campden, sir?” Tom asked, now wondering if de Zamora had chosen a private meeting place because he had bad news from home.

  “No.”

  “Then where have you been in all this time?”

  De Zamora sat down on one of the bridge’s drystone walls, and contemplated the eddying waters of the Severn. “Answer me first, did you write to her ladyship about me?”

  “I’ve written neither to her, nor to my father. I thought you would have visited them by now.”

  “Who else have you told that I am here in England?”

  “My brother-in-law, Ingram, who rides with my troop.”

  “But not your brother?”

  “No, I wanted to tell him in person. I haven’t yet had the chance.”

  “Ah, thank heaven,” sighed de Zamora. “Because what little you told me has changed everything. I have been searching my soul long and hard ever since, and I arrived at the conclusion that God put you in my path before him, to stop me from ruining the happiness of your family, which is the furthest from my desire.” A quiver of apprehension passed through Tom, though he did not interrupt. “Thomas, I was not sent to England by King Philip. I came to fulfil a promise to my older brother, Jorge. He revealed a secret to me on his deathbed that I kept for over thirty years, until I learnt that my days were numbered, and felt driven to embark upon my journey.”

  Tom frowned. “You seem to me in perfect health.”

  “The rot lies within – the worm inside the apple.” De Zamora buried his face in his hands. “You must advise me. I cannot die with this heinous omission upon my conscience, and yet … I shrink from the duty.”

  “What is your brother’s secret?”

  De Zamora glanced up, evidently bracing himself. “I shall begin with some history. Unlike you and your brother, Jorge and I were as peas in a pod, though a year and a half separated our births and our characters were quite opposite. As a child, I endured many an undeserved whipping on his account. We both entered the army young, but while I served obediently and rose through the ranks, he flouted the rules, led a dissipated life, and was nearly hanged as a deserter. At twenty-three, his crimes caught up with him: he was mortally wounded, stabbed in the belly by the husband of his mistress.”

  “Christ Almighty,” said Tom: Jorge’s misdeeds sounded familiar.

  “Let me turn back two years, Thomas. When his lordship your father was paying court to your mother, Jorge had inflicted on himself a mild injury to evade military service. He was in Seville spending his nights in debauchery and his days in flirting with his pretty cousins. I believe he cherished a special fancy for Elena, and it enraged him that your father’s suit should have been accepted by his aunt Cecilia, Elena’s mother.” De Zamora paused. “In his final moments on earth, Jorge confessed to me and to a priest that the night before Elena left Seville with her betrothed, he crept into the chamber where she slept, and … robbed her of her maidenhood.”

  Tom’s gorge rose; he was imagining his mother raped by a man with his brother’s face. “It can’t be true.”

  “I have on me his apology to her, Thomas, most of it dictated – he was too feeble to hold a quill towards the end. He begged me to take it to her, and I gave him my promise.” De Zamora reached into his doublet and brought forth a dog-eared letter, the parchment faded to a yellowish brown. “I can translate if you wish.”

  “No,” said Tom, grabbing it. The Spanish was inscrutable to him, but he saw that the letter started in spiky, uneven script that grew increasingly erratic. The rest was in a flowing hand. There were three signatures at the bottom: one scrawled, “Jorge de Zamora y Fuentes,” followed by “Antonio de Zamora y Fuentes” ’ in firm writing, and “Luis Iglesia, Societas Iesu” in the flowing hand.

  “Now you may understand what changed for me when we met,” said de Zamora, in a sepulchral tone. “You told me of the Lady Elena’s silence about her Spanish family. I thought she might at least have talked about those of us who had done her no wrong, but the whole subject must have been too painful for her. Then you told me how your older brother Laurence was like me. Has he my dark complexion and green eyes?” Tom nodded, trembling. “They are inherited from the Fuentes branch of the family, Thomas – your maternal grandmother and my mother were sisters, both dark and green-eyed. My mother married my namesake, Antonio de Zamora, and Lady Elena’s was wed to Giraldo de Capdavila.”

  Tom thrust the letter at him. “I’ve had enough of your family history, sir.”

  “I must know one more detail of yours: your brother’s date of birth.”

  “He was born on the sixth of June, sixteen twelve.”

  “Madre de Dios – then it is possible.”

  “What is?”

  “Your brother could be Jorge’s son.”

  De Zamora might have punched Tom in the guts. Yet how it all made sense: of his mother’s silence, of her sudden illness upon receiving the Envoy’s letter about Antonio, of Laurence’s wanton nature, and of the long estrangement between himself and his brother.

  “Thomas, this is so complicated – more than I ever predicted when I sailed for England. I had hoped the Lady Elena would be glad that Jorge had repented of his sin. But should she have borne his child, and should my suspicions come to the ears of his lordship your father or your poor brother …” De Zamora shook his head, his expression noble and determined. “I cannot do it. I shall write to the Lady Elena and say that I am dying, and must forgo our reacquaintance to settle my affairs in Spain.” He balled up the letter in his fist, and raised his arm to toss it into the river.

  “Stop,” shouted Tom. “Laurence must see it.”

  “And put doubt in his mind as to his paternity? That would be cruel, Thomas.”

  Tom wanted to laugh, for in his mind it was as plain as day. “Oh no, Don Antonio, you would do him a favour.”

  IX.

  Antonio said nothing while he and Diego galloped their horses well beyond earshot of the bridge; he was too confused. Diego spoke
first. “So, Don Antonio, has he told his brother of you? Did he write to his lordship or her ladyship?”

  “Thus far he has kept quiet.”

  “Phew! Did he suspect Jorge’s story?”

  “He gobbled it up. As for your beautiful forgery, had I thrown it into the water, he would have dived in after it.”

  “Then what went amiss? Will he go running to his parents for their version of events?”

  “I doubt it, he was so aghast at the insult to his mother’s virtue. But hear this, Diego: he proposed that he and I meet with Laurence. He said that once Laurence sees the deathbed confession, he will be relieved of an enormous burden that he has always wished to be rid of.”

  “What burden?”

  “Lord Beaumont’s title and estate. Apparently he will be overjoyed to cede them to Thomas, if the taint of illegitimacy can somehow be hidden from public knowledge. And Thomas thinks his brother will find a means, such is his distaste for the inheritance.”

  Diego looked sceptical. “Thomas is lying, the greedy fellow.”

  “I swear he’s not. As you said, he is transparent.”

  “Yes, well – his brother’s no saint, just as the gypsy told you. You should hear what gossip I winkled out of the valet, Adam: how Lord Beaumont dotes on his heir, his prodigal son, though Laurence has given his father nought but heartache, with his drinking and gaming and whoring, and has teased and mocked his brother mercilessly since their childhood. The Christmas before last, Thomas came to blows with him over some harlot he had fucked shamelessly under his father’s roof.”

  Antonio burst into laughter. “Now I am beginning to like him. Are they still enemies?”

  “They’ve been friendlier of late, but Adam intimated that the truce is paper-thin. So why would this rascal surrender a title and a fortune in land and wealth to a brother he doesn’t like?”

  “Not to earn a seat in heaven,” Antonio responded, laughing again.

  X.