The Licence of War (35 page)

“Should we hold onto N-newark, my Lord Wilmot,” the King said, “your t-task will be to join with Hopton and our southern army and attempt to break Sir William Waller’s forces, now that we have accurate intelligence of his strength.”

“Your Majesty, I broke Waller last year at Roundway Down, without Hopton’s assistance. I shall be delighted to trounce him again.” Wilmot smirked straight at Digby, while the King set his seal upon Prince Rupert’s order.

Digby approached the King, and said smoothly, “Might I offer
that my agent, Edward Price, ensure its safe and speedy arrival? His Royal Highness may remember how Mr. Price brought that vital dispatch to him at Aylesbury.”

“By all means, my lord,” said the King, and handed him the order.

“Mr. Beaumont has an announcement for you, my lord,” Quayle informed Digby, when he got back to his offices.

He was drumming his fingernails on his desk as Beaumont came in. “Well, sir?”

“My lord,” said Beaumont, his face bland, “His Majesty has acceded to my request: in a few weeks, once I’m fit, I may serve in Lord Wilmot’s Lifeguard. Until then I am at your disposal.” Digby could not speak for a second; hence Wilmot’s complacent visage. “My lord, I am sorry—”

“No, you are not, sir,” retorted Digby. “But as you said to me when you came into my service upon Falkland’s death, be careful what you wish for. You have made your bed with Lord Wilmot, and you must lie in it. You should beware of catching some unfortunate complaint from the Lieutenant General.”

“Such as what, my lord?” asked Beaumont. “Ambition? If so, I have already been exposed to a far more contagious strain.”

Digby hesitated, to modify his voice. “You have done a disservice to the King and to me in your childish dream to play at soldiers again. Over the
few weeks
that you are mine, I shall keep you busy. But for the nonce, you may summon Price to me, and go for the rest of the day.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Beaumont, and left Digby to ponder his revenge.

Ingram had noticed how quiet and brooding Tom had been in the fortnight since those prisoners were hanged; it was a scene Ingram had not cared to witness. Then on the march from Chester to Newark, Tom had blurted out what had happened on that same day. “How I regret that neither you nor Adam had been there to reassure me:
sometimes I think I dreamt it all. Ingram, de Zamora was so much like Laurence. And I haven’t seen him since! It’s as though he disappeared into thin air.”

“He must have gone to Chipping Campden,” Ingram said, staggered nevertheless. “If we’d received letters from the family, we would have heard by now.”

“If you write to Laurence, don’t mention de Zamora,” Tom said. “I want to tell him myself.”

He and Ingram did not talk again about Lady Beaumont’s Spanish kin. The army was travelling at a ferocious pace, mainly at night to escape detection by rebel scouts. Rupert had commanded swaths of hedge to be felled, to allow the passage of Horse, Foot, and artillery across country; and along the way, he had cleverly arranged to gather additional troops from local Royalist garrisons, sending some of these on ahead. They were to rendezvous with him at established points on his route, to keep the rebels guessing as to his numbers and the direction of his march. The Parliamentary forces besieging Newark might try to flee northeast if they had intelligence that he was actually sweeping down on them with more than six thousand Horse and Foot, an army twice as large as they could have anticipated.

On the evening of the twentieth of March, the Royalists camped a mere ten miles from Newark; they were to attack at dawn. Tom roused Ingram around two in the morning. The Parliamentary commander, Sir John Meldrum, had at last got wind of Rupert’s approach, and had withdrawn to a derelict building that he had fortified. The place, called the Spitall, had once been a sick-house, and was linked by a bridge of boats to a flat island in the Trent River that flanked the town. Tom’s men had been chosen with others to form an advance guard of cavalry to prevent Meldrum from slipping away: they would distract the enemy with a skirmish until the main body of the Royalist army could arrive.

Stealthily the advance guard rode into position between Newark and Meldrum’s line of retreat; and by dawn, from the crest of a hill,
they could view the enemy Foot and guns near the riverbank, with some fifteen hundred Horse in front. Resolving on a surprise charge, Rupert ordered his cavalry to assemble in three lines; he would lead the first of these. By nine o’clock they were ready.

Tom was beaming: they were to ride in the first line. He whispered to Ingram the Royalist password for the day: “
King and Queen
.”

“God be with you,” responded Ingram, trying to hide his own fear.

“For King and Queen!” yelled the Prince, waving aloft his sword, and they sped down the slope, cantering faster as they clashed with Meldrum’s Horse, which scattered like sheep. Ingram could not believe how they cleared a path through the melee without wasting a single shot. But Parliament’s Horse counterattacked, and soon they were hacking and parrying on all sides. In the midst of the confusion, Ingram heard someone cry, “The Prince is surrounded!” Tom was pushing against the scrum of horses and men, thrusting his sword into the animals’ flanks to get nearer to the Prince. When the enemy trooper directly in front of Ingram slid from the saddle, hit in the head by a glancing blow from Tom, Ingram caught sight of the Prince, in tight combat with three men.

As though protected by magic, Rupert cut one of them down with his blade just as his attendant shot dead a second. The third tried to grab the Prince by the collar of his cloak and had his hand sheared clean off by another Royalist officer. “Charge again, and drive them up to the Spitall,” the Prince shouted, with a pure exultation that heartened Ingram: here was the joy of battle, and eluding death by the skin of one’s teeth.

Under renewed assault, Meldrum’s cavalry were fleeing back over the floating bridge onto the island, abandoning the Foot and artillery. Royalist scouts galloped up with intelligence that the mass of Rupert’s army had now arrived, and that his musketeers were assaulting the bridge of boats, facing heavy enemy fire. On raged the fighting, for so long that Ingram was scarcely aware of the slant of the sun, but they gained the island towards afternoon. He and Tom were both
unscathed, and the scouts were reporting few losses. Shortly after, they learnt that the Royalist Governor of Newark had blocked Meldrum’s retreat to the north; and as darkness descended, word spread through the weary but cheerful ranks that Meldrum was suing for terms.

“ ‘Our victory cost His Royal Highness less than a hundred lives,.’ ” Laurence read to Digby, once he had finished decoding the report from Prince Rupert’s courier. “ ‘On his withdrawal from Newark to Hull, Meldrum had but two thousand Foot, stripped of all their weapons save their swords and some pikes. He left behind eleven brass cannons, two mortars, four thousand muskets, as many pikes and pistols, and more than fifty barrels of powder. The prize gun is a Basilisk four yards long that shoots thirty-two-pound balls..’ ”

“An enviable weapon,” chortled Digby.

“It puts the best of men to shame,” said Laurence. “And what else … ‘A large contingent of the enemy also deserted to the King’s side. A few enemy colours were seized from the rebels, only to be handed back to their officers by Prince Rupert himself, who went among his troops with drawn sword to restore order.’ What an achievement: to move about a hundred and forty miles in eight days, and amass such a huge army on the way. His troops must have been pushed to the limit of their endurance, and then they had a battle to win. It was pure genius.”

“And a crushing humiliation for a professional soldier such as Meldrum,” Digby added. “Now for us to destroy Waller in the south and the armies of Lord Manchester and the Scots in the north, and the war might be won for His Majesty.”

“My lord, I’ve received my marching orders from Wilmot,” said Laurence. “I must leave for his regiment tomorrow.”

“I know: he could not resist rubbing in
his
victory when I saw him at Council. I shall feel your absence, sir,” Digby said in a gentler tone; after his initial, furious reaction, he had been suspiciously
forgiving. “Their Royal Majesties are to celebrate Rupert’s success with a banquet at Merton tonight around seven of the clock. Please do attend, Mr. Beaumont, and we can raise a glass in memory of our partnership.”

“I shall, my lord,” Laurence told him, “with pleasure.”

That evening, Laurence packed his saddlebags, and cleaned and oiled his pistols; he would leave his Arab at the College stables, and ride out on Pembroke’s horse. Seward had produced cups and a bottle of wine. “From Clarke, so it should be worth drinking,” he said. “I shall have to drink plenty of it, to sleep through these festivities.”

As the bells chimed seven, Laurence made a cursory effort to spruce himself up, and went out. Fires and torches were disposed about the quadrangles, and the courtiers milled about to the strains of music from the Queen’s lodgings; and every so often a display of fireworks illuminated the sky with flashes of brilliant colour. Laurence accepted a goblet of wine from a butler and wandered towards the Chapel doors, outside which the King and Queen sat on a cushioned bench, amid a sea of ladies and gentlemen; Lords Digby and Jermyn were among them. In spite of her vivacious expression, the Queen appeared ominously frail and wan for a woman in the later stage of pregnancy; according to rumour, the child had been conceived during one of their Majesties’ trysts in the covered passage by their colleges, although Laurence found this an unlikely indiscretion on the part of fastidious King Charles.

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Digby, “Their Majesties have proposed a health to His Royal Highness Prince Rupert. Come lift your cup.”

“Certainly, my lord,” said Laurence, thinking how enthusiastic the Queen and Digby were to sing Rupert’s praises, when they would as eagerly conspire to besmear his reputation.

“And shall we offer our next health to Mistress Furnival, sir?” Jermyn said to Laurence; Digby had left them to talk to his diminutive friend Hudson.

“To Mistress Furnival,” said Laurence, and they drank again. “Are you acquainted with her family?”

“I’ve known Sir Harold and Lady Margaret since I was a youth, and Penelope since her birth.”

“And Catherine, I presume.”

A look crossed Jermyn’s face that reminded Laurence of Will, the stable lad. “Did you see
her
at the house?”

“Yes, and I liked her very much.”

“You must have charmed her from her shell. She generally avoids society – that’s why she did not wish to be presented at Court with Penelope. Pen is acknowledged as the beauty of the family, sir – you are fortunate in your bride.”

“And she will be as fortunate in her husband,” said a voice at Laurence’s shoulder.

He turned to see Lady d’Aubigny beside him; she was no less exquisite than he remembered.

“Will you take a cup of sack with us, my lady?” Jermyn inquired.

“Thank you, my lord, but I would prefer to steal Mr. Beaumont from you.”

“Of course,” said Jermyn, with the slightest smile at Laurence, and meandered towards Digby and Hudson.

“Are you alone, tonight?” she asked Laurence.

“I am,” he said, thinking of their chequered history together: a brief sexual liaison while she was still pregnant with her late husband’s child; a trip to London with His Majesty’s doomed Commission of Array during which she had infuriated Laurence with her blithe indifference to danger; and then her generous word in the King’s ear, solicited by Isabella, that had helped to rescue him from death in Oxford Castle.

Perhaps they were thinking alike, for she said affectionately, “I have missed you, sir. I want to show you a book, in the College library.”

“A book?” repeated Laurence, as she led him over. The door was unlocked, and the library empty and silent, though not dark; moonlight
streamed through the dormer windows in the roof. He surveyed the stalls of heavy tomes. “Which one is it?”

“It’s here, sir.” From a pocket in her skirts, Lady d’Aubigny withdrew a small volume. “Her Majesty lent it to me. It’s from France – a rare item, much in demand.”

She passed it to him, and he flipped through the illustrated pages. “I can imagine why … And it wouldn’t be found in most college libraries.”

She moved closer, and tapped her finger on a page. “Have you ever tried this?”

“I might have, though I can’t quite recall,” he replied; her attractions and the erotic pictures were a powerful combination. “And you?”

“No, but there’s a first time for everything.” Her fingers slid up his thigh, to caress him. “I believe you are tempted, sir.”

“Your hand is on the evidence.”

She removed her hand, and slid her hips onto the nearest library table. Adroitly she bunched up her skirts to reveal the tops of her stockings. “I should like to see your … evidence.”

“If I may borrow my old tutor’s dictum, my lady,
festina lente
.” He approached, picked her up, and reclined her on the table. Parting her thighs, he lowered his head.

“You have done
this
before, sir, I’d hazard a guess,” she observed.

He paused, to answer, “Oh … maybe once or twice.” He resumed, his mind straying again to the day that Isabella had read to him from a more subtle book about the art of love. As his tongue had reached exactly this warm place, she had lost concentration.

Her ladyship began to pant. “Dear God, dear God! Ah! What joy!” she shrieked suddenly, pounding her fists on the table.

“Hush,” he said, starting to laugh. He had forgotten how noisy she was in the throes of passion; and so, as he unlaced his breeches, he took the precaution of covering her mouth with his.

When at last they emerged from the library, he had no idea of the hour, but the feasting must have commenced some time ago, for
the crowds had dispersed and they could hear a roar of conversation from the Hall.

“As I recollect,” Lady d’Aubigny said, tidying her hair, “a banquet was held on the first occasion that I had the pleasure of … meeting you. This may be our final such meeting, Mr. Beaumont. I must surrender you to Penelope.”