Apples and Prayers

by Andy Brown

  To keep our spirits raised, our priests ministered to us from the makeshift chapels of their tents, in daily services before the crowd. In lighter mood, there was a fool from some Cornish Lord’s entourage and troupes of children chasing him for entertainment, getting under our feet with spinning tops and hoops, when they might usefully have found a task, say, fetching wood, or setting traps for birds. Our campground therefore swayed between carnival and solemnity, one moment sworn upon our self-confessed commission and then, the next, engaged in acts of vanity and folly.

  We had become cathedral, barracks, town, farm and hospital all at once. For that curative work, the surgeon’s table stood ready laid with tools, for dealing with daily injuries and the graver scars of battle. The surgeon was from the Cornish camp, a man called Tidicombe. He was really an apprentice barber, used to cutting hair and pulling teeth, but here he worked on any injury. A big fat man, with a rounder face, he wore a black skull cap with flaps pulled down over his ears, presumably to muffle his patients’ cries. Beneath his black jacket he wore a white smock that was mostly smeared in blood. Owning nothing more than a makeshift bench, he’d draped it with an animal hide and spread his instruments out in easy reach. Metal forceps, hooks and cutters, clamps for stopping blood. A saw and hammer. A purgative syringe. Small metal shears for snipping hair away. I prayed I wouldn’t see those implements used but, from time to time, heard a man’s cries, or smelt the acrid singe from some cauterized wound.

  My own makeshift kitchen was nothing like I knew at the Barton, but it served me well enough, to cook tureens of broth and herbal pottage smoked above prodigious fires. Each day our men fetched coney from the woods and there was a ready supply of woodpigeon and small birds for roasting, or adding to the stewing pot. We kept a pen of quails beside the tent and a rough-hewn sty of stakes and staves to house a pair of pigs. The great fat boar lay on his bed of straw, striped with shadow and sunlight. Beside him, goats dozed or fossicked for morsels on the ground, their pendent ears dragging in the dust.

  The hedgerows provided us with small additions: elder buds, bracken fronds, summer mushrooms, wood sorrel and small, sour crab apples. Fishermen brought us creatures from the river, carp and bream, or sometimes even trout. We gutted, skinned and baked them in the open. The smells attracted cats, dogs and scavenging rats, which seemed to appear as if on order. My God, if they weren’t so filthy, we’d have eaten those as well. The whole camp was overrun with vermin and other beasts upsetting tables and stew pots here and there: wandering sheep and cows brought in for milk and meat; horses for the Lords and captains of cavalry, all of which needed great mounds of hay for feeding. Their dung became scattered throughout, making the thoroughfares stink to the very pits with the ordure of animals and our own latrines. Sickness was rife: puking, diarrhea, summer sweats. The weather was extremely hot and we were grateful when the rain clouds came, uplifting showers cleaning down the stench.

  So, though it most times stank, we guarded our camp judiciously and placed our watchmen viewing every quarter. No one could enter or leave the city without first passing by our guard. Yet with its own cannon and defences, it became clear soon enough that the city wouldn’t yield to our attrition, nor fall to us by use of force alone. We’d need to turn to tactics of starvation, to dissension from within, to win our cause.

  For water, the city had streams and springs of its own. But we could stop the transport of foodstuff and starve them into submission. Our men were therefore set to firing small shot from the high ground to the north, deterring the traders and merchants who hoped to cart their produce in to town. Within days the supply lines were broken, keeping all their markets lean of victuals. The snipers also turned their musket bores and arrows on the town’s defenders, from the high windows of garrets outside the city walls. But when many inside had been killed in this way, the citizens set fire to our garrets and cheated our gunners out of their sniping posts.

  And so it ran for weeks.

  Some time into those weeks, I found myself attendant on my Lord as he discussed tactics with our captains. I waited outside the tent where he and the Cornish Lords had gathered. Lord Russell, that stern, brutal, practised soldier, would soon be arriving at Exeter, they said, to quell us in our determination. Well, we would show him.

  ‘Russell advances on Honiton, short of money and men,’ said the rich voice I now knew as Arundell’s. ‘He holds no Royal Army, save for conscripted militias and mercenaries. Our numbers swell daily, while his, his are on the wane. He can’t even be sure of the allegiance of those who stay with him. Lord Grey’s troops are diverted to Oxfordshire. Something more to do with a rising of priests there. The whole county’s in turmoil. While Russell idles, the Devil makes work for Grey’s hands in the hanging of good priests…’

  ‘Exeter mercenaries or not, we still far outnumber him.’ There was no mistaking the voice for anyone’s but my Lord’s. Talk had wafted out of the city that Protestant merchants were funding the battle against us.

  ‘Hasn’t the King also sent detachments to Russel in Honiton?’ asked another.

  ‘Aye,’ said Arundell. ‘De Wilton brings the German foot this way. Some seven hundred. And one hundred and fifty Italian arquebusiers.’

  Their talk went quiet and I let my gaze drift above the canvas of the tents, up into the clearness of the sky. I saw it suddenly filled with a rain of Italian fletches landing to the guttural cries of the Franks. We’d all heard, by now, that such mercenaries didn’t content themselves with the fight alone, but murdered, plundered, burned and raped, filling the world with disorder more pernicious than our protest could ever be accused of raising.

  ‘Even if he brings them,’ my Lord said, regaining my attention from unpleasant daydreams, ‘they can neither relieve the city, nor stop us with so few.’

  ‘Supplies to the city are falling short,’ Arundell agreed. ‘They’ve barely got enough to survive two days.’ His opinion was gladly received.

  ‘Of all dangers, famine’s the worst for them,’ someone else approved. I thought of my own grumbling stomach, of Alford’s need for feeding two. ‘They’re baking bread from animal feed,’ the voice went on. ‘No meat, save from horses. They won’t bear it much longer.’

  I prayed that he and Arundell were right. Two days was about as much as anyone, they or we, could take.

  Later that day, as a result of that meeting, a group of Buckland men were charged to sabotage the city walls. My Lord gave them their orders from the purlieu of his tent. We gathered there to hear, eager for some action to stir us from the boredom of siege and waiting. Alford was wearing her ankle length dress of brown kersey, a cloth wrapped round her head to guard her hair against the smut of camp. Beside her, along with his boyish grin, Dufflin wore a borrowed Cornish helmet, its metal nose guard dividing his face in two. His fist was clutched around the pole of a wooden pikestaff, a good two feet taller than himself. John Toucher had also taken to wearing a soldier’s helmet. I’d watched him tie the leather straps beneath his chin, the helmet sitting high on his broad brow like an ill-fitting acorn cup. His eyes burned out of the eye slits, like two great knots of wood in a planed plank. It frightened me to only see his eyes and no expression there; more animal than human being. I couldn’t recognise that impassive stare at all.

  ‘You’re charged with an honourable, dangerous task,’ my Lord began. Murmurs of keenness skittered round the men’s lips, like mice on a parlour floor. ‘Sir Walter and Robert will lead a posse. Five men. You’ll burn the city gates and gain us entrance. It’s time to bring this waiting to an end.’

  Indeed, it sounded treacherous and was met with silence.

  ‘Well, what d’you say?’ Sir Walter stepped forward. ‘Has the Devil got your tongues? Won’t you embrace the call; your good fortune? It’s time to do something.’

  Again the men looked round from face to face, waiting for someone to take the lead.

  ‘The plan seems well and good, my Lord,’ John Toucher then spoke up for all,
‘and an honour, as you say, to take it. But who, exactly, is going to do it?’

  My Lord raised his hand and placed it on John’s shoulder. ‘Strange that you of all should ask, John Toucher. I’ve watched you since the day we first embarked on this. I’ve seen your strength and courage, above all others, grow.’

  John seemed bemused to hear such praise.

  ‘You shall do it,’ said my Lord.

  ‘I’m honoured to find you trust me so,’ said John.

  ‘You choose the others.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ the ploughman Lucombes offered, smoothing down his breeches, as if to impress his betters. He lowered his cap and bowed his head in his discreet and considered way. Beside him, Reynolds also muttered ‘Aye’ in quiet agreement, although I heard his reply as resignation: he was a strong man, but not so brave or foolish as to endanger himself in reckless plans.

  ‘Which makes three,’ said my Lord. “Two others?’

  John looked into the faces of the men, but saw no willingness there. As everyone’s discomfort grew, my Lord sealed the matter. ‘Take the tanner. And his partner in crime, the gravesman. Both strong in their ways. It’s about time they both did something useful for us.’

  ‘My Lord?’ said Harvey and Ben Red in unison.

  ‘Are you sure, my Lord?’ John asked.

  The two men were as little suited to cooperation, as a sow and a bull are likely to produce fair offspring. I’d been watching Harvey with suspicion for weeks. I knew he was still waiting for his moment to come even with John Toucher, who’d gouted Harvey’s nose and flattened him in the cider barn those weeks before. For once, however, Ben Red was in no position to refuse his master. It was one thing to refuse a Cornish captain, another thing entirely to go against his Lord.

  ‘How dare you!’ Sir Robert snapped, jabbing John Toucher’s shoulder with the butt of his staff. I saw John flinch and, in his mind consider returning the blow, but he restrained himself. I relaxed. ‘Do you doubt your Lord’s wisdom in these matters? If you aren’t willing, I’m sure we can find some women more courageous than you and animals more loyal? You can think on that while you nurse the wounds of your flogging…’

  John Toucher yielded. ‘No, sir, I don’t doubt it and am happy to take the order. And the men.’

  ‘Or maybe you’d rather be turned over, right away, to the Protestants within?’ the young Lord tested him further.

  ‘No sir. I didn’t mean anything by it,’ said John. ‘I’ll discharge my duty with whosoever my Lord sees fit.’

  ‘Good. Good,’ Sir Robert and Walter then echoed each other. ‘The matter’s decided then.’

  ‘Excellent,’ my Lord shouted. Harvey and Ben Red shuffled in their boots, unwilling, yet unable to refuse. ‘The plan is this,’ and he issued details of the men’s attack, with measures set to start that afternoon.

  In hindsight, rolling a wagon up to the city gates and setting it alight might have been a well-conceived plan, had it not been for the unknown blockade they’d built behind the postern, or the tag-along folly of Sidney Strake who, once again, jumped unseen on the wagon, keen for some part in the action.

  And yet, as it unfolded, the danger didn’t come entirely from these, nor from the enemy, but once again from within. There’s no proving it now, but Harvey, I’m sure, gave the plan away to some confederate within the city walls. I didn’t need a pot of sage and mallowsweet to divine it… I could have written the whole thing down beforehand. I should, of course, have seen it. Should have known.

  When it came to the push, our men stole up to the north gate in their covered wagon, playing the part of patriots; tradesmen eager to enter the city for safety. But, in that moment, Harvey saw his chance to get the better of John. It was his two-sided tanner’s skin, his split nature that made him do it, I’m sure. Why else would he risk the lives of our men, but for his own dented pride? Only the pleasure of seeing John suffer would satisfy him.

  And so they approached the gates, these seemingly benign traders, bringing in much needed supplies. From our distance, we watched them ready themselves to jump down on command and set the wagon’s stack aflame.

  But in that instant, Harvey, who’d lagged behind, called out like a frightened child.

  ‘Look out!’ he hollered, waving his arms and feigning some danger above them.

  Our men halted; looked on high to gauge the danger.

  Above them, the townsfolk on the ramparts turned from their wandering patrol and saw the deception beneath them.

  A sudden rain of flint and shot came down upon our fellows’ heads, as though it had been magicked out of the air by the Devil.

  By the time they made it back to the safety of our lines, most had escaped without injury, including John, including Harvey. He’d get his horsewhipping later. Although my Lord believed he had, indeed, detected some danger up above, Harvey’s lack of nerve had put the men at risk and that would not go unpunished. I suppose he must have reckoned a flogging was a fair price to pay for seeing John Toucher injured, or killed. Now he’d pay the price without the pleasure.

  One of them, however, did not made it back. He lay, hit square in the chest, collapsed in the mirey ditch below our palisades – the unaware and frightened Sidney Strake.

  There he lay, bleeding and blubbering for more than an hour, until the defenders had halted their fire. When our men finally brought him back in to our tent, for remedies and care, the simple man was gravely feverish and losing blood, as if from a faucet.

  While he lay there dying, Alford and I made what medicines and poultices we could from the herbs we had in our camp. Death was waiting to claim him as his own. But we would hold him off as long as we could. The mercy was that Strake was too simple to know that this was his end. Alford and I measured out our days with work like this, for medicine and cures were always needed, concocting more than we had ever done at home. In their way, these chores had begun to wear away at Alford and she was now as gravely fatigued with her labours, as much as she was with her child. She was swollen greatly and only finished her chores with tremendous trouble.

  All our old talk and games, such as we’d played throughout the year, had now come to an end. Ours was now a friendship based on sheer necessity. Nothing more. She relied on me and I on her for every practical measure, with no degree of chat and making play.

  Yet even the practical was wearing thin.

  I felt I’d failed her in letting her come, though she would no more be parted from Dufflin, than a goose from her gander.

  I was dreaming of Alford one morning, of her happiness, of the rosemary growing outside her new home, when I woke on my rag bed, uncomfortable and aching from another restless night. I looked to Alford’s sweet, but sickened face, beside me. She’d had to grow in girth and soul, barely more than a child herself, with only her determination in her faith and future keeping her going. But our conditions were spoiling her body and she seemed as weak as the child she’d soon deliver. To think the child might light upon a world of heresy or, worse, that it should never know the freedoms we have known, incited my resentment. It was as much for her unborn child, I told myself, as for those already living, that we were now fighting this fight. Her hair and eyes were dull, where she should have been blooming, her limbs no longer strong. We rose and started the work of our day, rekindling the fire and preparing food. But there was no fire in her. None at all.

  I can’t say I was surprised then, later that morning, to see her weakened knees give way as we walked across the mead beyond the bridges, gathering in wild plants for us to stew.

  Her head bumped the ground with a leaden thud I heard from several steps away.

  ‘Alford!’ I shouted and ran to aid her. She lay in the long grass shaking and shrieking. ‘Alford! Holy Mary! What is it girl?’ I cried again, but she made no intelligible sound.

  At first, I thought she’d been wounded by an arrow, or a shot fired from the city walls, but we were too far from the ramparts; no way on earth could she have bee
n wounded like that. Then I thought, perhaps the child was coming?

  When I looked, however, I saw that this was a wounding of a different, deeper kind. I don’t think now that there was anything I could have done, although I’ve anguished over it since and blamed myself for letting down my watch on her. Her eyes were suddenly blank, rolling in their sockets, like sloes in a bowl. Her face was pallid.

  Looking down, she’d begun to bleed and the skirts between her legs were soaked in blood, as though she’d been cut off at the knee with a hatchet.

  ‘God in Heaven, Morgan!’ she agonised and looked up into my eyes with a fear that rocked the substance of my faith. We both fully knew then what this must mean.

  How she then yelled and wailed. ‘Help me, Morgan,’ she pleaded. ‘For God’s sake, help me…’

  I was wasting my breath in trying to calm her. She was delirious, frantic and by now almost speaking in tongues. Nonsense. Quickly, I gathered her arms around my neck, hoisted up her lumpen weight and struggled with her back to camp.

  ‘Help us! God help us!’ I hollered as we returned. ‘Bring us some water!’ I ordered the nearest man. It was Peter Lock, still tending to the needs of Sidney Strake.

  Between them, Alford and he were pouring blood. I had it all over my apron.

  Hearing our distress, my Lady also came out from her quarters secluded in the nearby grove.

  ‘Whatever’s going on?’ she asked around, raising her sleeve to shield her eyes as she stepped from the tent. ‘Such bawling and shouting! Has the city fallen? God, let it be so!’ She looked overjoyed to think it might, finally, have happened.

  ‘Your women, my Lady,’ the priest replied. ‘They are…’