The Licence of War (44 page)

“You don’t want to scare her.”

Laurence studied the ring again, and smiled. “From what I know of her thus far, I don’t think I would.”

C
lustered in the nave of St. Swithin’s Church were Sir Harold and Lady Margaret, a vicar in a neat surplice whose expression reminded Laurence of a paid mourner at a funeral, and two other, burly men he did not recognise. “Mr. Beaumont, how you like to keep us in suspense,” said Sir Harold. He was stuffed into an old-fashioned padded doublet and breeches, and his beard had been trimmed; Laurence could see the meat of his jowls over his high lace collar.

“Forgive me, sir,” said Laurence coldly, “but the roads were in a terrible state, and I had to stop by your house for directions here.”

Sir Harold presented the strangers. “May I introduce Dr. Offstead, who will join you and Catherine in holy matrimony. I thought also to bring my lawyer, Mr. Spriggs, and my bailiff, Mr. Morris.”

In case I tried to renege on our bargain?
Laurence nearly asked him. “And where is Catherine?”

“She felt faint, and went to walk in the churchyard,” said Lady Margaret. Despite her browbeaten expression, she looked attractive, in a gown of more recent make than her husband’s suit. “Do you wish to change out of your riding garments, sir?”

Laurence experienced a momentary shame for his travel-stained clothes and boots. “I’m afraid Catherine must have me as I am.”

“She will not argue with that,” Sir Harold said. “Go and fetch her, my lady.”

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Dr. Offstead, while the men waited, “I have taken it upon myself to compose an enlightening homily on the duties of conjugal life, since you have not been married before.”

“I thank you, sir, but we had agreed on a quick exchange of vows.”

“Have you the ring, or was she already given it on her betrothal?”

Laurence held up his hand; he had kept on the ring, out of respect for Seward.

“Your taste is as modest as our ceremony,” Sir Harold said to Laurence, “and as your choice of bride.”

Laurence bit back a retort; the women were coming towards him along the aisle between tall box pews. Catherine’s bulky costume was of faded cloth and obscured her slight frame, and her hair had been scraped into an unflattering knot. She did not appear faint, however: her dark eyes met his without wavering.

“Dearly beloved friends,” commenced Dr. Offstead, in a singsong drone, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of His congregation …”

As Laurence listened on, he thought how much Catherine must have suffered that he did not know about from her contemptible father, her cowed mother, and her spoilt sisters. He had undertaken a great responsibility in asking for her hand, and she had been courageous to accept him. Now he was determined to try and put aside his love for Isabella, even if he could no more banish her from his heart and mind than he could erase the scars upon his skin, or forget his anxieties about her precarious situation in London. For better or for worse, he and Catherine were linked. She was uncharted territory, as was he to her, and he felt in himself the same combined thrill and trepidation as when he had set sail for the Low Countries in quest of new adventures.

Dr. Offstead’s voice recalled him to the present. “Mr. Beaumont, wilt thou have this woman …?”

After Laurence had spoken his vow, Catherine spoke hers clearly and calmly. He pulled the ring off his finger. As it came free, it leapt into the air and fell with a tinkling sound on the weathered flagstones. Might Seward consider this an ill omen, he wondered, bending to pick it up. Yet as he slid it onto Catherine’s left hand, it was a fit; as though she had always worn it.

Dr. Offstead pronounced them married, Sir Harold congratulated them, and Lady Margaret burst into tears, whether out of joy or some less happy emotion Laurence did not especially care. He tucked Catherine’s arm into his and guided her from the church, wishing he could run away with her.

“Mr. Beaumont,” she said, “there was to be no feast at the house because of what you told my mother, but our neighbours learnt of the marriage, and my father insisted on inviting them. If it’s not safe for you to come, please don’t.”

“I’ll come,” he said, wondering again about the omen.

Sir Harold had to shout over the babble of his hundred or so guests, and the strains of a band playing fiddles, horns, and pipes. “People must marry, sir, war or no war, and we had to share this day with our friends.”

“And with the Gloucester garrison,” said Laurence, infuriated.

“What would you have us do? Send them home?”

“It’s a bit late for that, but you should post a lookout to watch for any intruders.”

“You must fancy yourself a very special item, to warrant such attention from our enemies,” Sir Harold joked, though Laurence caught a nasty edge to his tone.

Catherine disappeared with her mother, until they were all summoned to table. Sir Harold had plied Laurence with drink; and he was feeling rather less nervous, and dangerously uninhibited, as Catherine sat down at his left side. He would have liked to whisk her upstairs and rip off her ugly gown. Sir Harold sat on his right, and Lady Margaret had her place by her husband. Her other daughters were ranged at the end of the table. Penelope avoided Laurence’s eyes, but her miniature cast him a baleful stare, which he returned in kind.

Dr. Offstead recited the grace, and Sir Harold followed with a health to the married couple. “Catherine Beaumont,” he marvelled afterwards, and to Laurence, “Will you deliver a speech, sir, in your father’s stead?”

“No, sir: it would be unfair on these hungry people,” said Laurence. Gentry and commoners were cramming food into their mouths with oily fingers, slurping wine from their pewter cups, and hurling bones over their shoulders to the dogs. “How’s our magpie?” he asked Catherine, who was neither eating nor drinking.

“He – or she – can fly around the barn.”

“Then it’s time to release the prisoner.”

“We’re both impatient to be released.” Catherine touched a finger to her ring. “You chose this well.”

“I didn’t choose it – a friend gave it to me. He said it had belonged to a witch. And he thinks it may help you with your sickness,” Laurence added; the wine had loosened his tongue.

“So I must never take it off. Have you told your father about me?”

Her meaning was unmistakable. “Not yet,” he replied.

“I wish you had, before we married. I’m entering your family under false pretences.”

“There’s nothing false in you, Catherine.”

She made no response. The din from the tables below had anyway swelled to such a level that conversation was becoming impossible.

At length, platters were cleared, and Sir Harold bade the musicians strike up a merry country jig. Catherine leant over to speak in Laurence’s ear. “Would you come upstairs, sir? I want to show you our first wedding gift.”

Heads swivelled as they left together, and Laurence heard some ribald comments about him serving himself early to the tastiest dish. And why not, he thought.

At the top of the stair, he caught her in his arms. The thick fabric of her gown was unyielding as chainmail; and he sensed her resisting. She pushed open the bedchamber door and pointed to a canvas hanging on the far wall. “I don’t know who sent it here … though you may.”

The canvas was painted with masterful skill. Seated semi-clad in ethereal robes, her perfect breasts all but exposed, a goddess smiled languorously at a plump cherub floating in the sky. He held a bow and
arrow, in his face the tacit question: where should I aim? On her lap, suggestively placed, lay an oyster shell.

Laurence’s arousal drained out of him as if he had been kicked in the groin.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she,” Catherine said, looking straight at him. “Yes, she is.”

“Who is she?”

“I believe she’s … Aphrodite, the goddess of love.”

“What is her story?”

“Let’s see if I can remember,” Laurence answered evasively. “Cronus, the god of time, wanted to become the most powerful of all the Titans, so he castrated his own father Uranus. She was born of the foam that rose up as his parts were thrown into the sea. Because the other deities were jealous of her beauty, Zeus, king of the gods, married her to a lame blacksmith, Hephaestus. But she took many lovers, among them Ares, the god of war. The cherub is her son, Cupid.” He studied Isabella’s visage on the canvas, aware that he owed Catherine a more direct explanation. “It must have been painted about five or six years ago. The model would have been about your age.”

“Pen told me that you had a mistress in Oxford. Is she Aphrodite?”

“Yes. Her name is Isabella Savage. Was, I should say. She’s married now.”

“Did she send us the portrait?”

“Certainly not.”

Catherine breathed a little sigh. “Then who did?”

“A troublemaker.” He drew Catherine towards him, searched for the pins in her hair, and pulled them out one by one. “Where did you find this ancient costume?” he asked, as he investigated how to unhook it.

“It was my mother’s wedding gown,” she said, her breath quickening. “Pen thought I should wear it.”

“Then she’s also a troublemaker. And
I
think you’d look much better without it.”

He had discovered the hooks and was working on them assiduously when rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Lady Margaret burst in. “Mr. Beaumont, there are soldiers on the main road, heading towards the house!” she shrieked. “You must flee!”

“We have unfinished business,” he told Catherine. “I’ll be back for you, as soon as I can.”

“It can’t be too soon,” she said, and let him go.

“Rain, rain, and more rain,” groaned Ingram, as he struggled to light his pipe with a smouldering flint beneath the shelter of a dripping hedgerow. Prince Rupert’s camp was an ocean of mud, the air seasoned by a potent waft from the open latrine ditches. Nothing could be kept clean or dry. Ingram’s chilblained toes squelched inside his leaking boots, and he was itching from lice in clothes that he had not removed for weeks and now seemed a part of his skin. Mould flourished everywhere: on any item of leather not properly cured and polished, in the bread and cheese that he had eaten at breakfast, and in the now threadbare fabric of his sleeping blanket. Weapons rusted and jammed, men and horses took ill, and tempers had grown short among those, such as he, who had no indoor billet.

Ingram’s pipe started to glow and he sucked in deep of the smoke, as though it might provide some warmth. On the far side of the field, a troop of musketeers were at drill. One youth had dropped his weapon in the mud, to the fury of the supervising officer who was screeching: “Present upon your rest! Blow off your loose powder! Draw forth your firing stick! Hurry up, you laggards.”

While Ingram was watching them, smoking contentedly, a rider on a black horse cantered past the ranks. Ingram would recognise that horse anywhere. “Beaumont,” he shouted, and sloshed towards his friend.

Beaumont reined in. As he leapt from the saddle, water cascaded from his cloak. “What a Biblical flood,” he said, slicking away his wet
hair. “It’s been some time, my friend.” He gave Ingram a slippery hug. “How are you?”

“The only dry thing on me is my pipe. And you, Beaumont – did you come from Oxford?”

“Yes, though … I stopped in Warwickshire, to be married.”

“To be …?” Ingram punched him on the shoulder. “My congratulations. I’m sorry I couldn’t witness the ceremony.”

“Not many did. And alas, I had to leave my bride unsatisfied. A party of men from the Gloucester garrison interrupted our embraces. Had they arrived a bit later, they might have caught us
in flagrante delicto
.”

“There’s a silver lining to every cloud,” said Ingram, laughing. “So, what brings you here?”

“Tom wrote to me saying he wanted to see me about a family matter. Has he had more bad news from home?”

“Not that he mentioned. But he’s gone to Oxford. The Prince was summoned there for a Council of War and Tom volunteered to ride with him, precisely to see
you
.”

“God damn … Have you any idea what this is about?” Beaumont’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do.”

“I’d be breaking my promise to him—”

“Please, Ingram – if it’s important, I should know.” Ingram thought back to that day, etched in his memory because of the hangings; and as he recounted Tom’s startling tale, Beaumont frowned, as though fitting together a mental puzzle. “Antonio de Zamora,” Beaumont said quietly, at the end. “Where is he now?”

“Tom hasn’t seen him since, as far as I’m aware. Were he at your father’s house, I’d have expected news of him in our last letters from the family. It is odd that he should simply vanish, unless he came by a mishap.”

“I somehow doubt that.” Beaumont was mounting his horse. “Sorry to rush off, Ingram, but I must find Tom before he quits Oxford. Don’t say a word to anyone else about de Zamora.”

Tom walked out consternated from Lord Digby’s offices. De Zamora was waiting in the street, picking at his teeth with a fingernail and smiling at the passersby. Tom led him away, wishing he were not so obtrusively like Laurence. “His lordship’s servant says that my brother is in Warwickshire solemnising his marriage. He may not be back for another five days.”

“I am desolated that we must postpone our meeting – but what joyful news,” de Zamora said, throwing up his arms in an extravagant gesture. “Perhaps he may soon engender an heir to the Beaumont estate – though, with God’s blessing, you and your wife will be the first to give Lord Beaumont a grandson.” He cocked an eyebrow at Tom. “You are a trifle perplexed, Thomas. Has the marriage come as a surprise to you?”

“Of course not,” snapped Tom. “Now, sir, I must rejoin the Prince for supper at his quarters. I hope your valet has secured you lodgings.”

“I left him counting the fleas in our bed at the Green Dragon Inn. Do you know of it?” Tom nodded: it was in a rough neighbourhood habituated by criminals. “Five days in Oxford.” De Zamora cast his eyes heavenwards. “
Dios mío
, to think of the expense.”