A Crowning Mercy (31 page)

She looked for Scammell, searching the enemy lines with a clumsy telescope that Lady Margaret had mounted on the roof of the keep. Toby was with her, his red hair stirred by the wind. 'Perhaps he's not here.'

'I can't imagine him as a soldier.' She turned the great tube on its iron tripod to face the village. The image wavered. She could see the earthwork that the enemy had dug across the track that led to the castle, she could see soldiers sitting in the sunlight, their helmets off, eating bread and cheese. A chicken pecked in the village street. 'Ah!' She began to laugh. 'I've found him!'

'Let me see. Let me see.'

'Wait!'

She had half thought that the sight of Scammell would make her afraid, but instead she found him laughable. He had appeared at a house door, blinking in the spring sunlight, and he was scratching his bottom beneath an ill-fitting leather jerkin. He looked lost, out of his depth, and it was impossible to see him as an enemy to be feared.

Toby, who had hardly glimpsed Scammell on the night of the fire in London, stared at his enemy. 'What's the matter with him? Has he got the pox?'

'He's always scratching himself.'

Toby grinned. 'Captain Scammell, Warrior of the Lord. How could you possibly marry him instead of me?'

She punched him on the arm, moving the telescope, and she waited as Toby re-aligned the tube. He steadied the image. 'My God! He's got his own bodyguard.'

'Let me see.'

Campion squinted through the eyepiece, stooping slightly, and Toby heard a hiss of breath from her. 'What is it?'

'It can't be!' Her amusement had gone. 'It can't be!'

'What?'

'It's Ebenezer! He looks so different. And the Reverend Hervey.'

Toby took over the glass. 'Which one's Ebenezer?'

'Black hair.'

Toby saw a slight, tallish young man who stood just apart from Scammell. He was dressed entirely in black, even his elegant high boots were of black leather, and Toby could see a breastplate that had been lacquered the same colour. He limped as he moved, but there was a strange dignity to his movements. The third man, the Reverend Hervey, his sandy hair falling over his thin face, talked urgently to Scammell.

'I'm frightened, Toby.'

'Why?'

'They've come for me.'

'Nonsense.' He straightened up. 'Atheldene's in command.' He smiled at her. 'They probably don't even know you're here.' He laughed, trying to cheer her up. 'It's natural that they've come. This is the closest Royalist house to Werlatton. Don't worry. James and I will look after you.'

He spoke confidently. James was Toby's servant, a huge young man who was the son of Lazen's blacksmith and had inherited his father's great muscles and easy strength. James Wright had grown up with Toby. They had learned to hunt game in the woods together and to poach neighbours' fish together, and now they fought in the war together. Toby had often spoken of James's prowess with a woodman's axe carried against the Roundheads.

Yet she did worry and, to calm her, Toby offered a purse of five pounds to any man who could kill Samuel Scammell. The target was pointed out to gunners and musketeers, so that Brother Scammell, every time he appeared in the enemy lines, was pursued by musket balls as though they were hornets. Men fell to his left, to his right, yet somehow he survived. He took comfort from Psalm 91: 'A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee,' yet even so, he was fearful of his hours of duty and he wondered whether Campion was somehow directing the storm of musket fire that hummed and whirred about his head.

On 11 June the gatehouse fell. Its old stones were undermined by the enemy gunfire and it collapsed, sliding in dust and noise to make a heap of stone under which ten defenders were buried. The ring became tighter, the morale of the defenders lower, for though they were resisting the enemy's fumbling attacks, the enemy would not give up and go away. There was food within the castle still and plenty of water, but thirty men had died, as many were lying in stinking, suppurating pain, and boredom gnawed at the people trapped by the siege. The guns still fired, making inroads now on the Old House, opening its northern rooms to the spring rain and the fire of the enemy.

Sir George, seeing the path by which the enemy would come into the castle and understanding that the simmering war in the north would mean no relief from the King's army, wrote to Atheldene. He wrote despite the protest of his wife, and his letter requested the safe conduct that had been offered in May for the ladies of Lazen Castle. They would go, Sir George said, with Lord Atheldene's permission and protection, to Oxford.

The guns stopped as the messenger rode from the castle, a white pennon attached to his sword blade. The letter seemed an admission of defeat to the garrison, a defeat brought about not by the enemy's superior fighting ability, but by the gnawing, endless attrition of the big guns. Campion, unhappily collecting clothes to be packed in a great leather travelling trunk, listened to the horses being harnessed to the coaches that would carry her, Lady Margaret, Caroline and their maids away. Colonel Washington agreed with Sir George that Lord Atheldene's permission would be readily forthcoming.

The reply came in two hours. Lord Atheldene, it said, had left that morning, summoned to London, there to face charges that he had 'delivered comforte to oure enemies in Lazen Castle'. The Parliamentarian forces were now under the command of Colonel Fuller, the author of the letter, who claimed to have no knowledge of any safe conduct being offered by Lord Atheldene.

'Fuller!' Colonel Washington frowned. 'I know of Fuller.'

'Who is he?' Sir George asked.

'One of these new men, Sir George.' Colonel Washington stroked his moustache. 'A ranting Puritan, if you'll forgive me. He was a cobbler in Bedford and now he's called a colonel.'

'Is he honourable?'

'I don't suppose he can spell the word.' Colonel Washington shrugged. 'But he's not a bad soldier.'

Sir George went back to the letter, reading it aloud. Fuller was not impolite. He offered safe conduct, even promising an armed guard, for Lady Margaret, her daughter, 'and those other females of the household who wish to depart', yet the letter singled out an exception.

'You have inn your midst one Dorcas Scammell, Wife to one of Mine Officers, and she wee cannot release. Her marriage was Witnessed before Almightie God, in Whose Cause wee fight, and this Warrant of Safe-Conduct depends Upon her Restorral to her Rightful Husband.'

Lady Margaret had one word for him. 'Bastard!'

There was an unhappy silence in the long gallery. Campion felt the horrid weight of her past coming on her, as if the river of her life had carried her back to the mud of Werlatton. She saw the worry in Toby's eyes, and she felt responsible for the carnage that was being wreaked on Lazen Castle. She turned to Lady Margaret. 'You must go. You must.'

'You've lost your wits, child. I might be persuaded out by Lord Atheldene, but not by some cobbler from Bedford. Colonel Fuller, indeed! If you think such a man can frighten me from my home, you are very much mistaken.'

Sir George rubbed his eyes. In the new silence Campion again felt that this siege was her fault, that the seal about her neck had drawn the Roundhead forces to Lazen and had turned its peaceful acres into a place over which the gunsmoke drifted and in which men were daily buried. She sat down, her face troubled, but Sir George smiled at her. 'It's not your fault, Campion. They would have come anyway.' A crackle of musketry sounded from outside. He looked at Washington. 'Can we hold them, Colonel?'

Colonel Washington nodded. 'I think so, Sir George, I think so.' His fingers tugged at his grey moustache. 'We've deepened the trench between the Old House and the moat and I think we can flood it tomorrow. I think we can hold them.'

'Of course we can hold them!' Lady Margaret looked imperiously on the group. She needed only a chariot and spear and she would have personally scoured her enemies from about her house. 'Two more deserted yesterday! They'd hardly be deserting if they thought their own side was winning!'

Colonel Washington nodded. 'That's true, your Ladyship, very true.' Two Roundhead gunners had come to the castle at night, as other deserters had come before, risking the sentries' musketry, to come safely into the defences. Very few men had deserted the other way, a sure sign that the soldiers themselves believed Lazen could resist siege. The two new deserters were, so Colonel Washington said, scoundrels both, but experienced gunners were always welcome and the two men manned one of the murderers that threatened their erstwhile colleagues.

Sir George tamped tobacco into his pipe. He, like the rest of the garrison, was rationed to two bowlfuls a day. 'I think Campion should leave.' He waved down his son and his wife who had both begun to talk. 'Campion's enemies are here and we no longer have Harry's protection.' He turned his mild eyes to Colonel Washington. 'I think she might get through their cordon by night.'

It was Campion's turn to protest, but she was quietened. Sir George smiled ruefully. 'If they capture you, my dear, then I suspect you may no longer have grounds for annulling your marriage.'

The thought was horrible. It chilled her. She saw the anger come on Toby's face. He looked at Washington. 'You say we can hold them, sir?'

Washington nodded. 'There's no guarantee, not in war. They might stay here for ever! They've been at Corfe since God knows when. If Miss Campion can get out, then she should.' He paused because the Roundhead guns to the south had fired. He waited for the echo to die then looked at Toby. 'Would you take her?'

Toby shook his head, unhappy with the course of the discussion. 'I must stay here. I can't leave my men.' Toby, as a captain, commanded one quarter of the garrison. He shrugged, hating the moment. 'James could take her. If they can get into the woods above the road, they'll be safe.'

James Wright, the son of Lazen's blacksmith, knew the country about the castle as well as any man. If any man could take Campion through the enemy lines, it was he.

Sir George smiled at her. 'I don't want you to leave, my dear.'

'She must,' Lady Margaret announced decisively.

Colonel Washington looked out of the window. 'It won't be tonight.'

Somehow the sentence shocked Campion. She did not want to leave, she did not want to be thrown out into the world, yet if she had to go then she had not realised it would be so soon.

Toby grunted. 'No cloud?'

Washington nodded. 'It'll need a dark night. There's too much moon. Will Wright agree?'

Toby nodded. 'He'll be happy to do it.' He smiled at Campion. 'Jamie will get you to Oxford.'

She would become a fugitive, driven from this haven by the seal she wore about her neck. She could not escape it, her life was inextricably bound with the golden jewel, yet she wondered how long she would have to run from her enemies. They had followed her to Lazen, they were about to drive her forth, and she pondered whether there would ever be safety while she wore the broad axe of St Matthew about her neck.

She sat with Toby at dusk, holding his hand as the sun sank in dazzling splendour above the water meadows, touching the looping Lazen stream with scarlet. There was no cloud. He smiled at her. 'You won't go tonight.'

'I don't want to go.'

In the village a trumpet announced the evening duty. Soon, Campion knew, she would see the patrols in the water meadows, the new guards going to the sentry posts that surrounded the castle. Tomorrow night, if there was cloud, she would have to be smuggled past those sentries by James Wright. She leaned her head on Toby's shoulder. 'I don't want to leave.'

His hand stroked her cheek. 'I don't want you to.'

The rooks were loud across the stream. She stared at their ragged flight. 'Perhaps we should never have met.'

Toby laughed. His face was deeply lined, his eyes tired. He took little sleep now. 'Do you wish that?'

She was silent a moment. Her cheek rubbed against the leather of his jerkin. 'Perhaps we're not meant to be together.'

He pushed her away from him, turning her face so she was looking at him. He smiled. 'We'll be married before the year's out.'

She leaned against him again. She was unhappy. The river of her life was gathering speed, she could sense it sweeping her away from Toby and carrying her into a new darkness, a clouded darkness, and she was afraid. 'Hold me.'

Her right hand clutched the golden seal, clutched it as if she wanted to crush it out of existence and thus release her life from its thralldom. With a last, triumphant blaze of red light, the sun died in the west.

--<<>>--<<>>--<<>>--

'"Clouds and darkness are round about him: Righteousness and judgement are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about."'

The voices of young men were strong in the dusk, chanting the psalm. The preacher, Faithful Unto Death Hervey, stood on the wagon-loading platform of Lazen's mill and raised his hands at the troops in the mill field. 'Louder! Let the enemy hear you! Louder!'

The voices surged. The men grinned. They were happy, united by the metrical beat of the psalm, confident that the Lord was with them.

Ebenezer Slythe, standing where the great water-wheel clanked and dripped, its blades weed-grown and dank, listened to the noise. It uplifted him, exalted him, made him know that God was truly with Parliament. He liked being with the army, liked the smell of leather and horses, the sight of strong men. He was feared, as a man who worked for Parliament should be feared, and no man mocked him for his shrunken, twisted leg.

He limped into the miller's house, the sound of the psalm still filling his head with glory and righteousness. The girl, a miserable wretch who had been found in the woods, smiled at him.

'Get out!' He scowled. He needed her at night, but her fawning wish for approval annoyed him at other times. She was a sin, of course, but Faithful Unto Death had assured him that some men were so burdened by God's responsibilities that they were granted special privileges by heaven; did David not have Bathsheba? Within days he would discard her, because in days this siege would be over.