Bold and Blooded
BOOK ONE
Years of Blood Series
ANDREW WAREHAM
Digital edition published in 2019 by
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Bold and Blooded
Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Wareham
All Rights Reserved
Contents:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
By the Same Author
Chapter One
Editor’s Notes: Bold and Blooded was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings, punctuation and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.
Introduction: Born into poverty in a small Northamptonshire village dominated by an overbearing pastor and a tyrannical father, young Micah Slater fought back against his father and was forced to leave. He joined the military who were to confront the marauding Scots. It was a time of bloody unrest in the country where people had to decide whether they were loyal to King Charles the first, or to the growing influence of the Parliamentarians, or possibly to themselves. The War hadn’t started, but it was only a matter of time before the country became anything but civil!
Years of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
“Bloody ‘ard labour for sod-all money, that’s all ‘tis, Jacob!”
“Language, Brother Micah! It is our place, Brother Micah. We are born to it and it is the Will of God that we persevere in it. The quarry has been in the ownership of our family for generations and shall, if it is the Lord’s Will, continue to be so even unto our children’s days, and theirs after.”
Micah shook his head. He had received the same answer, unvarying, for six years now.
“Fine words, Jacob – but thou art the elder son. The quarry may go down to thy children, but it won’t to mine. And it won’t go to either of us for years yet – the Old Man is good for another two decades before he reaches his three-score and ten, and Grandad lasted till ‘e were well past eighty. Neither of us be more than labourers, nor shall us be for donkey’s years.”
Jacob carefully levered out another block of the roofing stone they were cutting, exactly as both had done since they were in their early teens and as they expected, or feared, to continue for another half century. The stone was a dull yellow striated hard limestone that turned grey after exposure to air; left out in the sun to dry and the layers split off, less than finger thick and a cubit or more in length and breadth. Collyweston slates were prized for roofs across much of the East of England, had been used as far away as Cambridge for the colleges there.
Micah picked up the stone and set it carefully in his wooden wheelbarrow, positioned exactly centrally, and took it off to the drying field, set it precisely in its line as his father had taught him with his heavy hand. He placed it leaning almost upright, tilted a little back so that the slates would not fall down and break as they cracked off the block. He turned the barrow and wheeled it carefully back the eighty yards to the face Jacob was working. He listened to the squeaks and creaks coming from the tumblewheel attached to its wooden axle which turned in the brackets holding it to the pair of long shafts which ended in the handles. There was only a little of grease for the axle and he must not waste it, but he could not allow the turning wood to become too hot and start to char away. His father had been bitterly angry when he had been that careless in the past, and he wore a heavy leather belt with a brass buckle on its end and had no compunction in using it to drive sinfulness out of either son, or his daughters on occasion.
’Spare the rod and spoil the child’; they had all heard that time and again over the years. Even almost fully grown as he was, seventeen or eighteen years, he suspected, and becoming a big man himself, Micah knew he was still not safe from the belt. His father, Humble-Servant-of-the-Lord Slater, was a tall man, powerfully built, and would not be moved from his course by pleading or cries of pain. He worked as hard as his children, sparing himself not at all, he said. He did the skilled work, cutting the slates to size with the trimming hammer, work that looked easy, until the untrained hand tried it, bent over and working all day, except when he had to deal with other chores around the yard.
“I ain’t stayin’ ‘ere forever, Jacob. Not for two meals a day and a copper penny if ‘e feels like it at the end of a week. It ain’t so bad for thee, at least thou hast something to look forward to. What’s there for me? Work six days a week, sunup to sundown. Come Sunday morning, walk into the village to the chapel and stand in the back for three hours before walkin’ back ‘ome and eatin’ bread and cold water, for it be a sin to work in the kitchen on the Lord’s Day, then back to chapel for the evenin’ service, what ain’t no bloody shorter. And if I catches the eye of Rebecca or one of the other lasses, an hour of bloody penance for sinful thoughts, standing out front of the chapel lookin’ like a complete bloody fool. I ain’t stayin’ for it much longer, that I tell thee, brother!”
Jacob had heard it all before, almost every day in fact. He was becoming tired of his brother’s moaning, though he had some slight sympathy for him. Jacob was to inherit the quarry, which stood on land that his father actually owned in freehold, come down through many generations, somehow. Family tradition insisted that a long past many-times-great grandfather had gone off to the wars in France and had come back with gold in his pocket, back in the good old days when the archers and spearmen of Old England had destroyed the knights of France, so it was said. In these days of King Charles, England was less to be feared across the Narrow Seas, wherever they were. There were no wars for a young man to run off to, that was for sure, except maybe against the Scots, from all they were told, and they were well known to be too poor to provide loot for a foot soldier’s pocket.
“Thou hast no place to go, Micah. I ‘ave told thee that more nor once, brother. A quarryman is what thou art, and where else be there quarries for thee to labour in? And, boy, ‘ow would thee be any better off being a labourer for some other man? thou ain’t goin’ to earn a living fit to take a wife, no matter where thou might be. Second sons don’t do nothin’; they don’t go noplace; they don’t wed. That’s the way of the world.”
Micah had heard that rejoinder repeatedly, and hated it, for knowing it to be true. He was almost a man grown now, only a little taller than most but broad in the chest and shoulders from his unceasing labour in the quarry, six days a week for every hour of daylight. His sisters told him he was handsome, except for his hair, and the funny green eyes; he h
ad good teeth, they said, and a strong chin and a straight nose and high forehead. It was a pity about the hair.
He picked up the next slab and settled it on the wooden crosspieces of the barrow; it was not so big as the last and he could take two on this run, save a little time for himself. He waited for Jacob to lever the next block out of the tall face, hewing high over his shoulders as he came to the top of the seam they were working.
“Goin’ to ave to cut back the soil again tomorrow, Jacob. Two days of diggin’ that will be.”
“Won’t, Micah. Going underground, so we are. Cut ‘er in careful like, from underneath and let the top drop down, then all we got to do is throw it back a yard to give a clear cut at the face. Do it before it comes down to rain and the wet’ll bring it down for us.”
“On top of us, more like, brother!”
“Not so long as we be careful. Give us a ‘and with this big lump.”
Working high and out of his direct sight, Jacob had cut out a larger block than normal.
“Best thou don’t set that on the barrow, Micah. Take what thee has got and come back for ‘im.”
“Nay, no need for that, Jacob. Give us a ‘and to set ‘im square on the barrow.”
Jacob shook his head exasperatedly – his young brother was angling to get himself in trouble again. He knew there was no point to argument; the boy was headstrong, would not be told. Too big for his boots, that was his problem. Ever since he had finished with the four years in dame school his father had insisted on – so that he could read his Bible as every chapel-going man should - Micah had been a nuisance. He had grown big and tall and was strong from shifting the slate stone all day, and was not willing to remain a child, as his father demanded.
He was red-headed as well, which Jacob remembered his mother’s father as being. The pastor at the chapel had pointed out, frequently, that Judas Iscariot had been flame-haired, and none could be more sinful than he. Micah had been repeatedly advised to remember his inheritance and be aware of his nature. He wore his hat always, partly to disguise the hair, more to protect his skin which did not like the bright sun; it also shaded the bright, piercing cat eyes that seemed to be another sign of his wicked natural self, or so the pastor said.
Micah lifted the barrow and started away, oblivious to the groaning from the axle. Jacob shook his head and turned back to his labour, selecting just where he would cut next with the pickaxe. He heard the cracking sound and the shout of dismay, turned, knowing what he would see.
The barrow was on its side, one shaft splintered and the wooden wheel askew on its axle. A first glance from a distance said that there would need be a new barrow made – the old one was beyond repair. That would take a day of labour, at least, and the spending of three or four pennies to buy seasoned timber from the village carpenter. The stone blocks were sound, but that was small comfort.
“Bloody Wounds, Jacob! That’s buggered everything!”
“Cease thy blasphemy and foul language, brother! Father will hear thee!”
The Old Man was running across, one hand already fumbling at his belt.
“Thy shirt off boy! I shall beat thee bloody for this!”
“No.”
“Do as I bid thee!”
“No. I will not be beaten again.”
“Thou shalt!”
The Old Man, angered beyond reason, lifted a clubbed fist to Micah, started to swing at his head. He collapsed in a heap, clutching at his groin, hard kicked by Micah’s heavy work boot.
“I told him I would not be beaten again, brother. He has raised his brutal hand to me once too often. Farewell, brother, for I can stay here no more.”
Jacob did not know what to do. The Old Man would beat Micah into a bloody heap for this; unchecked, he might well cripple him. The boy must not stay but could hardly go penniless into the wide world. It was not God’s work to beat a man senseless, but neither was it in the Testaments that a son should kick his father in the balls. It was a dilemma. Very quickly, Jacob decided he loved his brother more than his father.
“Wait, Micah! Come with me to the house.”
They lived in a far larger cottage than most in the village, ancient, dating back to their near-mythical rich ancestor. Jacob had a room with Micah, his three sisters shared two between them and there was a fourth for their parents. Most places in the village had but two upstairs rooms.
Jacob ran upstairs and dug out the stocking he kept under his pallet.
“Two shillings and fourpence, Micah. All I possess. Take it with my blessing and get down the road to Stamford, boy. Quickly, before the Old Man can stand and think to go to the constable to take thee up. He would see thee at the whipping post, and then beat thee more afterwards. Thou must go, far and fast.”
Stamford was little more than two miles distant. The family ventured there once a year to purchase for winter from the big autumn market. The town was home to at least two thousand people and was, according to the pastor, renowned for its wickedness; good country boys had nothing to do with spoiled urban dwellers.
“I cannot take thy savings, brother.”
“Thou must, for thou canst never return while thy father lives. Thou can buy your bread for a few days while thee finds work – though what thee will do, I know not. Go!”
Micah said no more. He looked at his Sunday shirt and stockings, decided they would be no more than a burden, and trotted empty-handed, apart from the money that Jacob had given him, out to the lane and down the hills past the forested land and into the river valley.
Jacob watched him out of shouting range and then walked slowly behind the cottage and called his mother and sisters from the garden.
“Come! Father is hurt at the quarry.”
They ran the furlong through their four acre field, down to wheat this year and a month before harvest. They found the Old Man still stretched out on the ground, rolled over onto his side. Jacob’s mother burst into lamentation, as was correct behaviour, she thought, weeping, wailing and beating, not very hard, at her chest.
“What has happened to thee, Mr Slater?”
The family had long since taken the name of their trade. Her husband rolled to a sitting position and panted out his reply.
“Thy ungrateful, miscreant son, for he is mine no more, has raised his hand against his father. He is cast out and will see my face no more. He will no longer sleep under my roof.”
Jacob quickly explained that Micah had in fact lifted his boot to his father.
“My father raised his hand over his head to strike Micah. In his rightful wrath, that was. Micah has left us, Mother. He will not return.”
“He cannot, ingrate that he is! To lay hands upon his lawful father when engaged in correcting his sins – he is no son of mine to do such a thing. Girls, go back to the house, and do not gossip about the family’s shame! Go!”
The three girls, one a grown woman, the youngest being of fourteen years, turned obediently. Jacob suspected they would chatter, as soon as they were out of hearing.
“The barrow is broken, Mother. Micah overloaded it and would not be told better.”
“Careless, heedless boy! Where is he? I shall send him to the pastor, beg that he might pray over him to drive out the demons of wilfulness that have overcome him.”
Jacob realised that she was distracted, had not listened to him.
“He is gone, Mother. Far away.”
“He has taken the high road to perdition! I shall beg that he be prayed for on Sunday, but I do not doubt he is lost. The Fiery Pit shall be his reward, Jacob.”
The Old Man pulled himself to his feet, limped carefully, straddle-legged, across to Jacob.
“Go to the Constable, Jacob. Raise the hue and cry against the reprobate.”
Jacob shook his head, slowly, carefully tried to remonstrate with his father. Always a risky task, now especially so, he suspected.
“Amos be the better part of seventy years old, Father. He cannot chase after Micah, for needing a walking-stick
to go as far as chapel on a Sunday.”
Amos had been made Constable to save giving him Poor Relief when he became bent over by the rheumaticks. Every parish was obliged to pay an officer of the law; almost all husbanded their groats by appointing the elderly and infirm to the post. The Constable had almost nothing to do in a small village where there was an active pastor or rector. It was rare that he was called from his cottage, and he could do almost nothing when he was.
“Then let the villain go and be damned to him. His name shall never again be mentioned in this house; he is dead to me. Jacob, I hold thee at fault for not preventing the fool from overloading the barrow. Thou hast saved a few pennies, I know – use them to buy the wood to build new.”
“I have no money, Father.”
“Do not lie to me, Jacob. Thou canst not have spent the pennies I have given thee – there has been no chance to do so.”
“I have no money, Father,” Jacob repeated. “I gave all to my brother so that he would not starve for the next week or two while he discovers a place to earn his own bread.”
“Traitor!”
Jacob’s patience finally cracked. He had accepted the teachings of the Bible as interpreted by his father his whole life. Now, he suddenly realised they were wrong, were no more than an excuse for the self-indulgence of a cruel, vicious old tyrant.
“Better a traitor than a hard-fisted brute, Father. My brother suffered thy cruelty many times and would take no more of it. I do not blame him for it, for thou art a mean-spirited villain, using thy Bible as an excuse for the cruelty of thy nature. And thou may take thy hand off thy belt, sir! What my young brother can do, so can I, and better!”
Slater’s hand fell away from his belt buckle, his sole answer for so many years that no longer served him. He resorted to bluster and threats.
“Thou art no more than a villain! Woe unto the man who is betrayed by his own sons! Go from me!”
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