1635: A Parcel of Rogues - eARC (23 page)
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Authors: Eric Flint,Andrew Dennis
Tags: #Fiction, #Alternative History, #Science Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General
“A less temperate man might be offended by that comparison, Jamie,” Campbell said, grinning, “for ye ken right well that for men such as we the matter of the law contains a few more choices than for the common run of man. So, aye,
terms.
”
“I’ll hear them, then. And judge from them what manner of man I’ve to deal with, aye?”
“Aye. Well, what ye need tae know on that score is that I want Scotland a nation, no’ a province. So, first, no advance for the bishops without a new National Covenant, which I fancy you’ll not get. For every living you deprive a presbyterian of, I’ll see an episcopalian deprived of a living also.”
Montrose raised an eyebrow. “I’ve to find the men who may be lawfully deprived and pursue them in the Commissary court? At my ain expense? If you want that done, do it. Any man may lawfully bring a prosecution, may he not? Let me say, rather, that for every episcopalian you deprive of his living, I’ll deprive a presbyterian. I fancy I’ll run out before you do. For all that, there’s a few that need swept out on both sides. Is it not the duty of public-spirited men to do the work of prosecuting the criminally minded?” He grinned.
Campbell chuckled. “Aye, it is at that. And aye, there’s a fine collection of drunks and fornicators in livings across Scotland. Who’re oft let be for want of someone to prosecute them, or because they’re holding a politically important living for one party or another.”
Montrose schooled his face to stillness. “And would it no’ be a terrible, terrible thing if we were to disrupt the parties and factions of the Kirk?”
Campbell rocked a hand in doubtful assessment. “Maybe, maybe no’. Am I to gather you don’t care overmuch for divines of either party?”
“They’re men among men, some good, some bad. But, aye, I’ve no charge to advance the episcopalians so much as an inch unless I’ve to do it to settle the peace. Not that I can see any way that would be to any such purpose.” Montrose shrugged. “Your first term is to ask me to do what I was minded toward anyway. The king wants his bishops kept, so keep them we must. We’re no’ commanded to have more, and there it lies for all I care. Your next term?”
“I’ve every hope it’s a good word for all the auld sojers comin’ hame frae the Germanies,” came a third voice.
Both clan chiefs jumped, startled.
“Aye,” said the third fellow, who’d appeared from what looked like nowhere. “A borderer for stealth, my lords, and permit me introduce myself. Major Andrew Lennox, formerly of the Mackay regiment, the Green Regiment and the Marine Corps of the United States of Europe.”
Chapter 26
The fellow was a shortish, wide-set man, balding evident now he’d taken his hat off in greeting but with a stout set of mustachios, dressed well but sturdily. Older than either Montrose or Campbell, by perhaps as much as twenty years, he was armed with back-sword and what was unmistakably one of the future pistols that had come back in the Ring of Fire.
“Your laddies, my lords, if they saw me at all, saw a mounted man go behind trees and no’ come out. And didnae stop to think that a man might dismount and seek smaller cover. Ye’d do well tae have a few veterans about ye, my lords. Is it no’ a good thing I’m such a friendly fellow?”
The sound of pounding hooves showed that whatever their prior faults, both noblemens’ retinues were thoroughly attentive now.
Montrose turned and waved his own people off and saw to his relief that Campbell was doing the same. The last thing anyone wanted at this point was a dozen armed retainers per side in a state of confusion with loaded weapons. It helped that Lennox had appeared as from nowhere, like one of the fair folk, and now stood straight, as tall as he could, hands clasped behind his back in token of no threat, and grinning. Montrose had not a shred of doubt that the fellow was well able to handle himself. He’d his own training in swordsmanship, and doubtless Campbell too, but all of his practical studies had been at the hands of tough old fellows like this. He’d been thrown on his arse more times than he cared to recall by men who even looked like that. There wasn’t an arms-master the length or breadth of Europe who didn’t have such men in his employ.
“The returning soldiers, you say, Major Lennox?” Campbell asked. “And may I ask, would you be the same as the Captain Lennox that distinguished himself so signally in Rome last year?”
“The very same, aye,” Lennox said, “and had I known what manner of embarrassment I was storing up for myself, I’d have stayed on my arse. And, aye, returning soldiers. Thousands of guid lads of guid character, and I hear they’re to be offered a choice of submission or exile? I fancy that’s no’ a good choice for any man.”
“It’s the choice your king offers, man,” Montrose, said, “or would you have a bushel of burning coals tipped into the tinder that is Scotland?”
“Speaking as one of the same coals, my lord, I’m of a mind that it was no’ I that made a tinderbox of my ain homeland. I went abroad, went for a soldier, all according to law, and took up arms in the Protestant cause wi’ the king’s blessing. I’ve changed not a jot of my faith in my time abroad. Why is it I must be hedged about with conditions before I come back to my home?”
“A fair question,” Campbell observed.
“By royal command,” Montrose said, “I am charged as I am charged. The king has cure of the nation’s souls, and every concern to see that ye bring no heretical notions home with you. And what was lawfully done when you went abroad is no longer being done, if I judge aright.”
Lennox put his hat back on. “Gustavus Adolphus is yet Captain General of the United States of Europe. I remain in his service, as permitted by my enlistment. As permitted by the enlistment of all such men as I. I’ve paid attention—the warrant names His Majesty Gustavus Adolphus, not the king of Sweden. Which he remains, it so happens. Does His Majesty care to give back-word on his ain warrant?”
“Do the Scots in the service of Gustavus care to levy war against their own monarch?” Montrose asked. “For such seems to be the tenor of what you say.”
“If you hear that, my lord, you’re no’ listening. And if it’s to be war, His Majesty has already struck more than enough blows. Issued warrants and charges threatening exile, demanding surety from good Protestant Scots where his father asked only for outward obedience even from papists, arrested my own former commander, charged with no crime at all, whatever gown law may say—”
Montrose held up a hand. “Enough, man. Ye talk of gown law like you’re about to demand satisfaction.”
Lennox snorted. “It’s no’ your fault, my lord, I understand that. And I’ve had tae carry out hard orders enough times that I’ll no’ think the less of you for the following of the orders you’re given by your ain commander. But the best o’ the case that rat Finnegan has is he says he saw the colonel fifty yards distant on a ship he thinks this man Cromwell sailed on. And there’s still no guid account o’ the crimes this Cromwell is said to be convict of.”
Campbell cleared his throat. “I think Major Lennox is saying, in his bluff soldier’s manner, that there’s a great deal that disnae smell right about Colonel Mackay’s remand in the Tolbooth. And he mightily suspects there’s a morsel o’ politics staining that arrest warrant.”
“Aye. Which is why for the moment we’ve no taken tae prison-break ourselves,” Lennox said.
“We?” Montrose asked.
Lennox grinned. “Och, did ye no’ hear o’ the colonel’s wife? Finest rifle-shot in the world? Baroness o’ some spot in Lappland I cannae even say the name o’? Lady who’s watchin’ us frae, it might be, three hundred yards? If either o’ my lords would care for a show of her shooting, wi’ smokeless powder so ye’ll no see where she shoots frae, simply hold your hat up in the air and she’ll shoot it. I’ve other signals I could give, ye mind.”
Montrose didn’t feel he had anything he could add to the silence that followed. He’d heard what had happened to Wallenstein at the Alte Veste. There
had
to be some exaggeration in the report of a thousand-yard shot—some accounts had it at fifteen hundred, and one at two miles, with angels wafting the bullet home in the accompanying woodcut. Three hundred yards, with a rifle, though? That was a dangerous shot to a standing man even without assuming some Ring of Fire gunsmithing. A fellow would have to be unlucky to be hit, for certain, but even levelheaded soldiers told tales of the American weapons being very accurate and long ranged. Even if the American baroness could only manage a hundred yards more than the best gun Montrose had ever laid eyes on, they had to assume she was able to hit them.
Lennox went on. “The plain fact o’ the matter is this; did we want blood shed, my lords, ye’d be bleeding. Did we simply want the colonel oot o’ the Tolbooth, no’ a stone would stand upon another there, for we’ve a muckle few fighters by us wi’ all manner o’ powder an’ steel. We’re no’ even the readiest tae fight o’ the German veterans, mind, but we’ve a muckle lot o’ learnin’ in the business o’ war, wi’ all the most modern o’ arms. What I would have ye understand, gentlemen, is that if either o’ ye is minded tae have the colonel hang by some bribery or subornin’ o’ the’ judge, we’ll tak’ it amiss. With which, gentlemen, I’ll bid ye guid day.”
He was in the middle of turning away, and then paused. “Yin matter that I was like tae forget.” He took a small bottle from inside his green-dyed buffcoat, and placed it gently on the taller of the two standing stones. “I’m no’ happy tae be giving guid drink tae a pagan stane, ye mind, but ye’ve a lesson tae learn, I’m thinkin’. If ye bide here as I go, and wait while I pass from the sight o’ ye, look tae this bottle tae see what the baroness would hae done wi’ ye. And let the stane drink your health. Dinnae stand by it, mind, glass will fly and the losing of an eye is nae laughing matter.”
The brawny cavalryman strolled away—a fairly quick stroll, it had to be said, but somehow the fellow made quick-march look casual—and both Montrose and Campbell watched him down the hill, detour slightly around a small knot of sheep, pass not so much as a blade of grass that might have hidden him on the way up, and stroll in among a small copse of trees.
It was almost an anticlimax when the wine-bottle cracked gently, the neck neatly severed and dropping into the body of the thing. Wine bled and dribbled out of a crack that ran all the way down. Looking closer Montrose could see that the ball had been barely so wide as a reed and had punched clean through the glass. The round of it was clearly visible, the crack of the gun a mere snap compared with even a pistol of the ordinary kind.
“We’ve a mite more to discuss, I fancy,” Campbell observed, looking over Montrose’s shoulder at the broken bottle.
Part Six
October 1634
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I’ll mak this declaration;
We’re bought and sold for English gold—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Chapter 27
“Four weeks, Alex,” Julie Mackay said, “How have you not gone nuts? Also,
the smell.
Oh! Tom Stone sent some incense sticks, they should help. A bit.”
Lennox could see her point. The Tolbooth was none of your fancy residences, but with the Mackay money and a daily visit from the servants, Colonel Alexander’s cell was comfortable enough. He had books, and good food brought him from the kitchens, and coal and lamp-oil for the nights. None of this did much for the stench; the chamber pots were emptied into a hole at the bottom of one of the stairwells. In theory they drained. In practice, they…fermented. “You’ve nae stirred fra’ this room?”
“Oh, I’ve a wander about the corridors when I’ve a mind,” Alex said, shrugging and sinking back down on the chair he’d been brought the day he’d arrived here. Julie sank down in his lap, a heartwarming sight. “But aye, bored. Black, mortal bored, Major Andrew, old friend. What brings ye t’ visit me in durance vile?”
“Well, I had a wee chat with Montrose and Campbell, as your father suggested, and as Lady Julie was minded to visit I felt I should mak’ ma report in person.”
“Och, well, have a seat. Is Jamie still a pompous wee arse?”
Lennox grinned. “I didn’t speak to him enough to ken, mind, but yon arse is in a crack o’ Charles Stuart’s making, if I’m any judge. And Campbell’s no help to him. The man said barely a word, but he was hardly affronted t’ see me tell Montrose I’d have a bone tae pick wi’ him, me and a muckle o’ veterans besides, and be damned tae his Episcopalian master.”
Alexander whooped with laughter. “Tell me ye gave the man a ringing speech o’ religious liberty, Andrew? Tell me ye did that!”
“Don’t tease, Alex,” Julie said, swatting her husband lightly, “what he did was heroic.”
“Bloody daft, more like, hen,” Lennox said, “It’s no’ like they couldn’t have elected a new pope, and here I am, a presbyterian wi’ a papal knighthood? That man Mazarini, he has a nasty sense o’ humor. And aye, I ought have spoke o’ freedom o’ conscience, but Campbell put me off my stroke by reminding me of that bloody knighthood. But it happens I gave yon laddies all the message they needed regarding yourself. Are ye sure ye’d rather bide here?”
“I’m sure,” Alex said, “the plan is a good one. Or, rather, it’s the best we’re like to get. Julie, did that fool of a lawyer get any further with bail for me?”
“No,” she said, “he’s been pestering every judge he can get his hands on and none of them want to hear in court about letting you out since you’ve a home in the USE and we’re in the middle of sailing season. Which is the reason they’re giving, that and your dad’s too old to be a reliable cautioner for your bail, but there’s this sense Mr. Home is getting that all of the judges are waiting to see what Montrose does, but they also don’t want to piss off anyone else which is why they won’t have it in court. Oh, their
excuse
is that there are, like six courts with jurisdiction in your case and they’re all saying it’s one of the others that’s
really
supposed to handle your case. Which is why Andrew and me went to shoot at Montrose today.”
Alex glared at her.
“She’s twittin’ ye, Colonel,” Lennox said, chuckling as he spoke. “Just a wee show o’ her shooting, no’ a hair on anyone’s head harmed. After I’d told them what was to happen, in every sense. Your father and I had words on how to do it. And we played a few tricks to make me look by far the better soldier than any other man there.”
“You still were,” Julie said, “One of those idiots nearly trod on me, and how they missed you up there I’ve still no idea. Or how they thought Oliver was Andrew, they don’t even look slightly alike.”
“Not everyone’s got your eyes, love.”
“Aye, at a mile one man in a green coat looks much like another. And for all Mister Cromwell’s a head taller than me, he can ride. Darryl, bless the lad, is better than the sack o’ shite he used tae be in the saddle, but nobody would take him for a horse-soldier of any kind. And wi’ me startin’ up like one o’ the wee folk like that, I thought me they’d not be looking for the wee details o’ the story we were telling them.”
“Anyway, Andrew says Montrose was impressed, and Campbell too. And your dad had the full report and he’s hopeful of making a big spectacle of your trial, so big they let you go rather than actually let it go ahead. And we finally got word back from Magdeburg, they’re sending through a bunch of future history for us to spread around. Broadsides to print, that kind of thing. Your dad’s after making a real political stink and get Montrose so busy trying to shut him up quietly there’s no hope of him getting away with anything else.”
“And the kirk? The bishops?”
“Montrose’s problem, for now. Oliver went over the stuff we already had, and he thinks with Laud out of the country on the lam the chances of the king trying to press his luck here in Scotland are pretty thin. Your dad’s got some sort of thing going on with our clan chief and some other Scots guys back home, so he’s trying to spin this as the returning veterans being guardians of the covenant and Scotland’s liberty. There’s more details than that, but he’s the expert, not me. I can sort of understand it, but I think politics around here is something you’ve got to grow up with to understand. It’s a
leetle
more complicated than democrat and republican. Bit more like high-school politics, with all the he-said she-said bullshit.”
Alex grinned at her. “Only in this version the cheerleader’s got a gun?”
“And a husband with a sword, sure,” she grinned back. “And a dad who convinces us all not to come out shooting, when the laws turn up to arrest him. Although I’d’ve taken more convincing if Alexi hadn’t just gone down to sleep.”
“Aye, well, let’s no’ be thinkin’ o’ getting’ the wee girl shot at,” Lennox put in. “The baron’s a guid heid on him for that, now.”
Alex and Julie both grimaced. “I get it,” Julie said, “but using Alex as a pawn for this game he’s playing is, well…”
She wave the hand that wasn’t draped around her husband, contriving to take in the whole grim stone pile of the Tolbooth, the whole legal system it stood for, and the politics that were driving it.
“Aye, it’s cold,” Alex said, “but it’s no’ a bad move for all that. And I’m no sacrifice, mind. Boredom’s the worst of it, and the worst I’ll endure. The king had trouble enough with the Petition of Right in England. He’ll not be after making more trouble over imprisonments here. Did I mention Finnegan came to visit yesterday? He was trying to say he’d withdraw his case if I gave up Mister Cromwell. I told him to get a warrant to arrest Cromwell and find him himself, if he cared to arrest a second man for nothing, and I’d see him in court to make a fool of him there. I don’t think he was hoping for much, myself, but he brought witnesses. I think he was hoping I’d say something seditious.”
“The king’s got more than he had over the Petition o’ Right,” Lennox observed. He’d had a fair education in the matter from Cromwell, who’d not been personally involved but had known men who’d been in it up to their elbows. The change from only five years ago, when the arbitrary imprisonment of five prominent knights had ended in court proceedings, was stark. Now, a matter of imprisonment might go to court, but a visit from a troop of mercenaries made sure it never came away again. At least in England. Things seemed to be better balanced between king and subjects in Scotland.
Darryl McCarthy had joked about the English not spending near the same money on the Scots and Irish as they did on themselves, and the fact that the king was a Scotsman born in Scotland only made the jest the darker. The result was that Montrose’s mission to keep Scotland quiet was both easier and harder. Easier, as the heavy hand that had the English gentry plotting wasn’t laid on the Scots nobility and gentry; harder, because even without that heavy hand there was more than enough to have them plotting in any event. Lennox himself was getting involved, and while he was no experienced hand in matters political, if a king had even the sons of the peasantry scheming, he wasn’t doing so well.
Colonel Mackay seemed to agree. “Aye, but there was a hope of a settlement. Since His Majesty started out with the present business by denying the Petition of Right, nobody but a fool would think this can end without bloodshed. We saw that back in England. Without naming names where we might be overheard, we met a fellow who needed very little convincing to begin to scheme, and I don’t doubt that every fellow he’s been in touch with since was as ready for the touch as he was. Were I a wagering fellow I’d bet that some of them were already making ready with arms and thinking of who they might muster in their cause. As our American friends would put it, that camel was well loaded already and His Majesty has been piling straw after straw on the beast.”
“True,” Julie put in, “and your dad said to pass on that you’ll have an advocate in to see you in the next day or two. Meantime, I don’t believe I shot all the bottles of liquor Andrew had with him today?”
* * *
“Are you sure, love? You’ll be exposed to a great deal of danger.”
Gayle chuckled. “As if I haven’t been already! Yes, Oliver, I’m sure.”
She levered herself up on one elbow and gazed down at him. Gayle was a busty woman and, nude as she was, the motions of the various body parts involved distracted Cromwell.
Not for long, though. First, because the matter was serious. Second, because he was a serious man by nature. Third, because he was also a sated man at the moment. It had been a very pleasant afternoon.
And finally because Gayle slapped him playfully on the head. “Pay attention, you!”
When his eyes came back to hers she smiled and said: “I’ve spent hours and hours thinking about it, Oliver. I started thinking about it while we were still in the Tower and our only contact was by radio. I hadn’t even met you in person yet.”
She broke off long enough to bring herself to an upright sitting position, her back against the wall next to the bed. “I not only had to think about it the way any woman will about a man she’s considering getting married to, but about the fact that the man involved was Oliver Fucking Cromwell.”
He made a face.
“And if you say a word about the Profane Swearing Act—”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Wasn’t even thinking about it. It’s just…”
He sat up himself. “I don’t ever think of myself as ‘Oliver Cromwell.’ I think of myself as the same man I always was. Not”—he waved his hand—“some historical figure who belongs in a painting or a book.”
“Yeah, I understand. But it’s not a personal thing, Oliver. I don’t think of you as anything other than the man I’ve come to love. The real man, if you will. But even if you wanted to ignore history, history isn’t going to ignore you. For better or worse, you’re Oliver Cromwell.”
He got a crooked little smile on his face. “And here I thought you gave predestination short shrift.”
“It’s got nothing to do with theology. It’s just a fact that unless you change your name and go into hiding—plastic surgery would be a help too, and I’ll explain what that is some other time—people will have expectations about you. Good or bad, they will. When that asshole king of yours had you thrown into the Tower, he confirmed it for everybody in Britain.
This is Oliver Cromwell.
Yeah, that’s right,
the
Oliver Cromwell. He not only put a price on your head, he made you famous ahead of time, so to speak. Which means you’ll be drawing admirers and would-be followers as well as bounty hunters. And you know as well as I do that you’ll accept their allegiance. Because the fact is that you
are
Oliver Cromwell and you have every intention of repaying Charles Stuart in kind.”
Again, he grimaced. “It’s not a matter of vengeance, love. Well—a bit, I suppose. Mostly, I have simply become convinced that England needs a new political arrangement. I’m not even sure what I think it should be, yet. Perhaps a republic. Perhaps a constitutional monarchy. But if it’s to be the latter, it’ll have to be one without that man on the throne.”
He planted his arms on his knees and laced his hands together. “I’d settle for him in prison, however. Or even in exile as long as he minds his manners. I don’t insist that his head be removed, richly as he deserves it.”
She laughed softly and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Like I said. Oliver Fucking Cromwell. Yes, I will marry you and share your fate, whatever it winds up being.”
“And I, yours,” he said.