The Licence of War (53 page)

A long table in the main room of the farmhouse had become his lordship’s desk, but he was standing at a distance from it, when they walked in. A space had been cleared upon it, for a package. Digby greeted them with trepidation in his owlish eyes. “This arrived from London, and was to be sent to me in Oxford via our garrison here.”

“Your latest gift from Mr. Veech,” said Laurence.

“Open it, Mr. Beaumont.”

As Laurence loosened the string, the smell hit him. He dumped the contents out onto the table: a slim roll of bloodstained paper, and a largish object wrapped in sodden linen. Already queasy, he unfolded the linen. Inside was a severed right hand, the thick hair upon it matted with dried blood. Every nail had been torn from the fingers. He recognised the criss-cross of scars on the big, lumpy knuckles: the insignia of a housebreaker. “Oh dear God,” he murmured, turning away. He had grasped this hand in friendship, and in thanks for saving his life.

“Whose might it be?” asked Digby, sounding relieved.

“It’s Barlow’s,” Laurence choked out.

“It can’t be,” cried Price, clutching at the edge of the table. “Barlow can’t be dead.”

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Digby, “pray inspect what is written on that paper.”

Laurence obeyed. “It’s in cipher, in
her
writing.”

Digby snatched it from him. “Yes, but … the cipher is old. Isabella was not acquainted with it.” He dropped the paper, and looked up. “Parliament intercepted a trove of my correspondence in this cipher before war was declared. Pym’s agents broke it, and I have not used it since. What can it all mean, sir?”

“For Christ’s sake, we know what it means. Veech has arrested her.”

“If so, Sir Montague’s friends in Parliament will secure her release. We must remember that my Lady d’Aubigny was liberated from the Tower last year without penalty.”

“That was last year, my lord, and she is His Majesty’s cousin by marriage, not
your
spy.”

“I hired Barlow as Lady Hallam’s courier, and I must accept responsibility for his death,” Price said woefully. “Let me go to London and fetch her out.”

“No, Price,” said Laurence. “Veech will send us your ears, or your hand, or … or whatever else he chops off your body. We know who he wants. Until he can entice me in, he’ll hold her as his captive.”

“You’d have no more chance of succeeding than Mr. Price,” Digby objected.

“Even so, I’d attempt it. Though if I’m seized by Veech, you would pay a high cost. I know what it is to be tortured, and – how did you phrase it to me last year –
once tortured, twice shy
.”

“I should not have said that, sir. It was to provoke you.”

“It’s the truth, my lord. Think of what secrets might come out – yours and the King’s. If you estimate it’s worth the risk, send me to London. After today, Veech and I want mutual revenge.”

“I must reflect on my decision.” Digby indicated the hand. “Meanwhile, please dispose of this, sirs, and then transcribe what Isabella wrote. It might provide some clue.”

Laurence wrapped the hand back in its linen shroud. “He was a fine man, wasn’t he, Price.”

Price nodded, sobbing. “He might … he might still be alive, Beaumont.”

“He might. But if he’s not, let’s give at least this part of him a decent burial.”

When they returned from their sad duty, Laurence deciphered the lines on the bloodied roll of paper: a message purportedly from Digby to Isabella detailing a plot to lay charges of gunpowder in the cellars of Derby House, to be exploded while the Committee of Both Kingdoms was in session.

“This was invented by the rebels to incriminate her, yet why would it be in her writing?” Digby asked.

“Perhaps Veech left some document for her to find. She must have copied it without understanding the contents. I trust it
is
pure invention, my lord?”

“Upon my soul it is, sir. It would not hold water in a court of law.”

“I wish I could share your certitude,” said Laurence. “There have been so many plots of late. Parliament might believe us capable of almost any base intrigue.”

He waited for a reproof, yet Digby said nothing.

On a rare hot, sunny day, the young Beaumont women were out in Martha’s herb garden picking broom buds to preserve in vinegar. Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary wore straw hats to protect their complexions, but Catherine had discarded hers and was working away diligently; as if by tacit agreement, she and Mary had chosen one half of the garden while the Beaumont sisters took the other.

Observing them through the open stillroom window, Lady Beaumont marvelled at the bond that had grown between Catherine and Mary in less than a month. Mary was noticeably happier, which boded well for her approaching confinement. The rest of the
household, including his lordship, was still bemused by Laurence’s enigmatic bride, and Lady Beaumont knew that Elizabeth would have preferred Penelope for a sister-in-law. She herself detected in Catherine a strong character and an alert mind, though she could not yet predict if they might clash with hers.

Martha glanced up from the mixture she was grinding, of cloves, cowslip petals, and fresh butter: her salve for cuts and wounds. “Master Laurence is a dark horse, is he not, my lady, to settle for such a creature. Country folk would believe she’d been touched by fairies – she’s got that strangeness in her eyes. And now what can she be doing?”

Catherine had stopped to search into a thicket of broom. She called over Mary and held out her left hand; then they both started fumbling inside the bush. “She must have lost her wedding ring,” said Lady Beaumont. “I would not care if she did – it is a drab little thing.” Her attention wandered to Elizabeth and Anne; heads bowed, they were in tight conference.

“It’s not fair, when
he
had his way,” exclaimed Elizabeth, and flung aside her basket, sending up a shower of yellow buds.

Anne grabbed her by the arm. “Liz, you must be patient. You don’t know the man.”

At once, Lady Beaumont hurried out. “Elizabeth, Anne, tell me why you were arguing.”

“We were not arguing,” said Elizabeth. “We were discussing why I should not be allowed to consider a proposal of marriage, as agreed, since Laurence has taken a wife.”

“Are you referring to Mr. Price?”

“Yes I am. I’d hoped you would have an answer for me by now, as to whether he can court me. And I
have
been patient. I’ve waited a whole fortnight, and not a word has been said – as if he had never visited here.”

“Did Laurence recommend him to you as a future husband?”

“He has said nothing to Mr. Price’s discredit.”

“Nor has he given him a warm endorsement,” Anne reminded her.

“Ah, you would compare my situation with yours,” snapped Elizabeth. Then she caught her mother’s eye and bit her lip.

“They are two very different situations,” said Lady Beaumont. “We have known Walter Ingram for years. To judge from my short acquaintance with Mr. Price, which is as short as yours, Elizabeth, he is not the kind of man your father and I could ever approve of you marrying.”

“But why? He’s endured his share of hardships in the past, yet now he has an excellent position with Lord Digby, and the means to support me as his wife. And he is Laurence’s friend.”

“Think of your dead husband, and the man
he
was! He would turn in his grave if he knew you had fallen victim to that strutting peacock, with his false graces. I should write myself today and—”

“My lady!” Martha came rushing from the stillroom. “Mistress Catherine is ill!”

Lady Beaumont turned to behold Mary, both hands clapped to her mouth in a trite gesture of horror, and Catherine swaying to and fro, her eyes rolling in their sockets like those of a maddened horse. The girl collapsed to the ground and lay juddering, flailing her arms and legs. Martha got to her first and bent to restrain her thrashing limbs. Her skin was a bluish grey, and a dribble of foam issued from her lips.

“It’s as if she’s possessed by demons,” Elizabeth whispered.

Catherine’s jaw locked with a grinding of her teeth, and her body became rigid; she was uttering strangled sounds.

“She may have been bitten by a mad dog,” said Martha. “I’ll fetch my spirit of hartshorn.”

Lady Beaumont knelt and gripped Catherine’s shoulders; the girl had regained her breath, but the foam had thickened around her mouth. She jerked convulsively, her lids flickering as if she were in the depths of a waking nightmare.

Martha sped back just as Catherine relaxed and her eyes closed, her face blanched and peaceful. “It is the falling sickness,” Martha asserted. “No need of hartshorn – the fit has passed. We must lay her in bed and she will sleep, and be quite herself again. I know from my uncle who had it.”

“Is there a remedy?” asked Lady Beaumont.

“Some say a powder of mistletoe around full moon, though it didn’t help my uncle.”

“Did he die of the sickness?”

“No, my lady, and he lived three score years until his heart failed him.”

Mary spoke, with a confidence Lady Beaumont had not heard in her before. “It was because of her ring. Her hands were sweating, she said, and it had slipped off into the bush. She was desperate to find it – she believed she should never remove it, or something terrible would happen. I picked it up, too late.” She showed them the ring in the palm of her hand.

“Give it to me,” Lady Beaumont said, and replaced it on Catherine’s finger.

Eight days after the slighting of Reading, His Majesty’s troops evacuated Abingdon covered by Lord Wilmot’s Horse; and the following day, Essex occupied the town for Parliament. Malicious gossip circulated that Lord Wilmot had virtually gifted it to Essex, although it was not he but Lord Forth who had issued the somewhat premature command to withdraw. Laurence suspected Wilmot’s enemies, mainly Digby, of spreading a slander that would further harden the King against a man he already so disliked.

Essex and Waller had more sense than to quarrel. Their armies now controlled the whole of Berkshire and were a mere four miles apart, converging inexorably on Oxford. And Price’s fledgling intelligencers in Gloucestershire brought other bad tidings: Colonel
Massey had recalled his troops to their home garrison not because of any perceived threat from the royal army, but to launch an attack on Bristol. Though he could ill spare any of his Oxford troops, the King had to dispatch General Hopton to the west, to secure this vital port.

Back in Digby’s Oxford quarters, Laurence received a letter from Lady Beaumont. She made no mention of de Zamora and assured him that everyone at the house was well, except for Catherine. “Yesterday she suffered an instance of the falling sickness. We understand why she did not speak of it: she was in fear of being sent home, where she had been cruelly treated by her father. I think you tried to tell me about her ailment on the day you brought her here. We are dismayed, however, that her family hid the truth from us, and that you, knowing of it, chose to wed her. Since it is too late to break the marriage, we can only pray to God she may bear you healthy children.” And in a last sentence: “As you must have heard from Mr. Price, he visited us some weeks before Catherine’s illness, in the hope of courting Elizabeth. Please instruct him to look elsewhere for a bride.” Laurence composed a reply thanking his mother for the information, though he avoided the subject of Price. In a letter to Catherine, he urged her not to worry, and to take care of herself.

He had no time to dwell on these domestic concerns, and after night upon night without sleep spent perusing and relaying reports, all of which confirmed the steady advance of Parliament troops, he was anyway too fatigued. His own worries about Isabella and even the mystery of the Spaniards weighed less immediately upon his mind: Oxford was bracing for a siege.

“For this despicable act, and for refusing my summons to lay down their arms, the citizens shall have no quarter,” Prince Rupert told his officers, as they slogged back into formation in the drenching rain. Their first attack on the small, virulently Puritan town of Bolton had
been repulsed, but that was not the cause of his outrage: the defenders had hanged a Royalist captive, contrary to the rules of war.

“Why did the rebels do such a thing, sir?” Adam asked Tom.

“They mistook him for an Irish papist,” said Tom. “There’s an old history of hatred between Catholics and Puritans throughout Lancashire. Now we’ll settle it, once and for all.” He was so sure of victory that he and his lieutenants Curtis and Smith had placed bets as to the number they would slay. Bolton would add to Rupert’s triumphs, on his path to rescue the garrison at York.

“They can depend on God’s mercy but not on ours,” the Prince concluded. “I command you as always to respect the lives and persons of their women and children.”

Tom joined in the collective cheering. “Those Puritan swine call Bolton the Geneva of England,” he laughed to Adam, while drums and trumpets sounded the order for a second attack. “When we’re done with them, they’ll call it their grave.”

“Charge, in the name of God, and of your King,” cried Rupert, flourishing his sword, and sprang forward on his white stallion.

The Royalists bore down upon soldiers and citizens, hacking to the right and left with their blades. Tom ran a trooper through the chest, and galloped on, nearly trampling an elderly civilian who had rushed out of his house wielding a musket. Tom stuck the fellow in the neck; a scarlet jet gushed forth, spattering him and his horse. His ears rang with screaming and bellowing and howling, and distressed neighs. And he breathed in the intoxicating reek of war: a meaty odour of blood, the sewer stench of human waste, powder, and thick smoke. He began to lose count of how many he had killed or wounded. When the action lulled, he took off his hat and used the rainwater from the brim to cleanse his grimy face. He looked back for Adam, and saw him unhurt and grinning.

Trumpets sounded again; the Prince was blasting past, with Boy loping at his horse’s side. “A couple of hours have won us Bolton,” he shouted. “You have licence to sack the town. The plunder is ours.”