A Midsummer Tempest (2 page)

He crashed and fell.

In mid-air he kicked free of his stirrups. He hit the ground and rolled among the bean-stakes. Muscles took up more shock than did armor. Bouncing back to his feet, he saw his horse flail about and scream. One leg flopped hideously, snapped across.

His companion’s mount had balked at the barrier. The Puritans came on with unwonted speed. Did they know the white plume? An earthquake booming went under hoofs. Metal flashed glacier cold.

Will jumped down. A cloud, briefly covering the moon, made him invisible at a short remove. This close,
one could barely see him rip off the King’s tokens and sidle away into night.

“Thou’st left thy blade forgotten, in my back!” Rupert cried after him. “I thought at least thou wert as good a dog, if not as bright, as Boye that thou let die! Farewell, Will Fairweather—fairweather friend—”

He stooped, to draw his dagger and give his charger the last mercy. Thereafter he took forth his sword.

The Roundheads overleaped the fence and ringed him in. He looked from saber to saber, pistol to pistol. A craggy-visaged man who must be their captain squinted at him. “This is indeed Prince Rupert of the Rhine,” he breathed.

He straightened. His steel snapped upward in salute. “Your Highness, you will not remember me,” he said. “I was a humble knight you met at court, that time in youth when you from Holland came to guest his royal Majesty your uncle—who’s still our King, and we his loving subjects who only fight his evil counselors—”

“You are so long of wind you ran me down,” Rupert replied.

“I beg of you, your Highness, that you yield. You shall receive all honor due to you.”

Rupert bit his lip. “Else lie a corpse, or piglike stunned and trussed?” Within their casques, the faces above him and around him strove to hold glee in seemly place. His sword sank, until he handed it hilt foremost up to the captain. “Well, have this of me, then, Sir What’s-Your-Name, until another day.” His head lifted. “For after all, ’tis no disgrace to fall to such as Cromwell. Beneath your buff, you men are Ironsides.”

A MANOR, SOME THREE MILES UP THE RIVER AIRE FROM LEEDS.

T
HOUGH
lately built, of modern brick and tile, it seemed to belong to an earlier age. Twin battlemented towers flanked its gauntness, and cannon the drawbridge across a moat. Clearly, the owner had foreseen trouble returning to England. Not far away on the right, well preserved but deserted, blurred by time and ivy, Kirkstall Abbey was another remembrance, more peaceful and more sad.

Both stood forth sharp upon a tamed terrain. Lawns, arbors, and flowerbeds encompassed the manor, down to the stream in whose sparkle yew and willow mirrored themselves. Behind the house went that row of sheds, stables, mews, and cottages which pertained to the estate of any gentleman. The country around was mostly farmed; besmocked hinds, their wives and children, horses and oxen belonging to the master, could be seen at work in several distant fields. One deserted steading had not yet been torn down, for it was not so very long ago that the last bankrupted yeoman was brought out, the last tenant made into a hired hand, and the common enclosed. Remotely to north, where hills rolled skyward, blue haziness veiled a remnant of wildwood.

In that setting, the future made a deeper mark than the past. From the largest of the sheds a railway ran straight to a stone bridge across the river, and thence vanished southward. Skeletal semaphores, spaced in sight of each other, stood guard along the tracks. To left, Leeds was a cluster of steeples, walls, and roofs, blurred less by the miles between than by the smoke from a dozen tall stacks which begrimed them. A grayness of factories and tenements had begun to sprawl around the old city. The wind bore a hint of iron in motion, stamping
and grinding. On the western horizon, trails of fume and soot marked where Bradford lay.

Here, however, July was pure. The morning sun touched small wandering clouds with brilliance and called a thousand different greens out of grass and leaves, golds out of cornfields. The air carried odors of blossom, earth, and growth. All trees were full of bird-song.

As the front door of the manor opened, two mastiffs, chained near the guns, broke into furious noise. They quieted when Sir Malachi Shelgrave stepped forth, though they still bared teeth and growled at Rupert, the stranger by his side. Behind came four halberdiers in helmet and corselet, two-handed swords slung across their backs, pistols in their belts. The drawbridge boomed hollowly under their tread.

The captive was unarmed and unarmored. The clothes he had worn beneath his mail—linsey-woolsey shirt, leather doublet, coarse hose of blue wadmal, knee-length flare-topped boots—had undergone a hasty cleaning which left faintly visible stains of grass, soil, sweat, and blood. His head was combed and barbered but hatless.

His companion, who was of medium height, must crane neck backward to meet Rupert’s eyes. He smiled, a stiff little twitch, and said in his precise voice: “I do regret your Highness must go thus, as plain as any yokel, for the nonce. You’re such an unawaited guest, you see. This house holds naught that’s near to fitting you.”

“No matter,” Rupert answered indifferently.

“Oh, it is, if but to me. Sir Malachi Shelgrave’s honor makes demand that he show proper hospitality”—he drew breath—“to Rupert, Prince and nephew of the King, by birth Count of the Rhine Palatinate, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland, the Earl of Holderness, a Knight o’ the Garter, and, over all such titles from the blood or from King Charles, his Captain-General.”

For an instant, Rupert’s set calm broke. He halted and half raised a fist. Lips drew back from teeth, brows down above stare. The guards gripped fast their weapons.

Shelgrave stood his ground, spread palms wide and
exclaimed: “I pray your pardon, did I seem to mock! I merely wish to show with what great care I’ve studied you, our glorious opponent.”

Rupert let fingers unclench and fall. Again there was nothing to read on his face. The Roundheads looked relieved.

“This day a master tailor comes from Leeds,” Shelgrave proceeded rapidly. “He’ll measure you, drop every other work, and sleep will be a stranger to his shop till you are suited as becomes a prince in velvet, silk and cramoisie.”

“No need,” said Rupert. “I am a soldier, not a popinjay.”

His gaze probed the other man. Shelgrave met it, and for a minute they stood locked.

At fifty years of age, the master of the land was still trim and erect. The hair had departed his high-domed skull, save for a brown fringe cut short around the ears; the grayish eyes were forever blinking; skin sagged beneath the chin of an otherwise cleanly molded sallow countenance; but those were almost the only physical scars which time had thus far dealt him. His clothes were of Puritan austerity in color and cut, though a glow in the dark hues bespoke rich material. A rapier hung at his waist, together with a large wallet.

“At least your Highness needs a change or three,” he said. “I think you’ll grace this house—perhaps a month.”

Rupert failed to keep surprise quite out of his tone. “That long a while?”

“I pray my lord, consider.” Shelgrave resumed strolling. Rupert fell into step, as well as such long legs were able. The Parliamentarian glanced sideways at him before going on: “They say you are a most blunt-spoken man. Have I your leave to use frank words?”

“Aye, do. I’m surfeited with two-tongued courtliness—” Rupert broke off.

Shelgrave nodded knowingly. “Well, then,” he began, “your Highness—and Maurice, your brother, but you the foremost ever, these three years—you’ve been the very spearhead of our foes. Your name’s as dread as Lucifer’s in London. Without that living lightning bolt,
yourself, the armies of unrighteousness—forgive me—would long be scattered from around the King like tempest clouds before a cleansing wind.”

“In his sight,” Rupert snapped, “you’re the rude and ugly winter.”

“He is misled.”

“Continue what you’d say.”

“May I indulge my curiosity?” (Rupert gave a brusque nod.) “Although I am no soldier born like you, I did see service under Buckingham in younger days, and was therefore made knight. Sithence a scholar of the art of war, among much else, I’ve read not only Caesar and other ancients, but the chronicles of later strategists like great Gustavus. I’ve thus had knowledge to admire your skill as it deserves. They call you overbold—but nearly always, lord, you’ve won the day. And still so young: a score of years and four!” Shelgrave blinked at his prisoner, who did not act like a man tickled by flattery. “The fight on Marston Moor thus strikes me strange. When faring north to lift the siege of York, you found your opposition ill-supplied, disheartened, split in squabbling sects and factions, and in no favor with most Northerners. You could have chivvied them as wolves do kine until they broke, ’Tis what I feared you’d do. Instead you forced a battle on a ground ill-chosen for your side. I wonder why.”

“I had mine orders,” Rupert rasped. “More I will not say.”

“’Tis honorable of your Highness, that—yet useless, for it surely is no secret what envies and intrigues have seethed around the youthful foreigner who sought the King when war broke loose, and was at once raised high. Which rival engineered those orders, Prince? No Puritan would undermine—”

“Have done!” Again Rupert stopped as if in menace.

Shelgrave bowed to him. “Of course. Mine object’s only to explain why I’ve the pleasure of your company. You see, you’re priceless to our enemies, and hence to us. Your capture was God’s mercy, which brings in sight an ending of this war. Yet still the Royalists retain some strength. Their court’s at Oxford, not so far from London. A massive raid by, let us say, Maurice might still
regain you for that high command which soon your fiercest rival won’t begrudge. It must not happen. Fairfax saw this too. Accordingly, he had you carried hither in deepest secrecy, here to abide until the East is absolutely cleared. Then, without fear of any rescuers, you can be brought to London.”

“To what end?”

“That lies with Parliament.”

The furrows tautened around Rupert’s mouth. “I thought as much.”

Shelgrave took his elbow in companionable wise and guided him on along the path. Roses stood tall on either side, above a shyness of pansies; the breeze was full of their fragrance. Sunbeams slanted through trees to dapple the lawn. Gravel scrunched underfoot.

“Your Highness, cast your melancholy off,” Shelgrave urged. “You’ll find enjoyment and surcease from strife. The household staff and others you may meet are under oath to breathe no word of you, and known to me for their trustworthiness. And thus by day, though guarded, wander free about these grounds.” He gave an apologetic sigh. “I dare not let you ride. I would I did. I’m eager in the hunt, and you will like my horses and my hounds.”

Briefly, Rupert’s fists knotted.

“But you can fish, play ball, do what you wish,” Shelgrave promised. “I hear you are of philosophic bent. Well, so am I. Make use of any books. Do you play chess? I’m not so bad at that. At night, I fear, you must be locked away in your apartment, high in yonder tower. But ’twill be furnished with the tools of art—they say you draw and etch delightfully—and you’ll have access likewise to the roof. There often I beguile a sleepless night by tracking moon and stars across the sky. Come too! I’ll show you mysteries in heaven”—his voice trembled a little, ardor leaped behind his eyes—“and maybe they’ll convert you to the truth.”

Rupert shook his head violently. “That lies not in your sour and canting creed.”

Shelgrave flushed but kept his words level. “Were you not reared a Calvinist, my lord?”

“I try to be a proper Protestant, yet not cast off
what’s good from olden time. I’d liefer hear a service than a rant; I do not think my Romish friends are damned, nor that ’tis right to persecute the Jews; I’d hang no helpless granny for a witch.” Bitterly: “That day we captured Lichfield, I was glad to let its staunch defenders leave with honors. But then we entered the cathedral close and saw what desecration had been wrought on ancient lovely halidoms—” Rupert hewed air with the edge of his hand. “Enough.”

“There goes a daybreak wide across the world,” Shelgrave said, “which forces pretty stars to flee our sight. But oh, those stars were shining infamous within that chamber which a tyrant kept! ’Tis pity that you fight for fading night.”

“I grant that James was not the best of kings—”

“He was the worst … and followed Gloriana. Harsh taxes to maintain a wastrel court, oppression of a rising merchant class in whom the seeds of England’s greatness lie, and rural rule by backward-looking squires: such was the legacy that Charles disowned not. And worse, his queen herself is Catholic; the Papists get an easy tolerance; the Church of England stays unpurified. Small wonder, then, that free-souled men demand, through Parliament, long-overdue reform.”

“I am no judge of that,” said Rupert; “I’m merely loyal. And yet—you people prate so much of freedom—” He waved toward the hireling workers in the fields. “How free are they? No lord looks after them.
You’re
free to let them go in beggary across the gashed and smoky land you’d make.”

The men paced on awhile in silence, bringing their tempers under control. At length Shelgrave said, his tone mild once more:

“I thought your Highness a philosopher who also cultivates mechanic arts.”

“Well, that I do,” Rupert admitted. “I like a good machine.”

“What think you of our late-invented cars which run by steam and draw a train behind?”

“They’ve been too rare for me to more than glimpse, and railway builders all seem Puritan. We captured one such … locomotive, is it? … near Shrewsbury,
upon that single line which leads into the West. I did admire it, but had no time from war to really look.” Rupert’s glance went as if compelled along the tracks to the biggest shed. Smoke drifted out of a chimney on its roof.

“I love them as I do my hunting horses,” Shelgrave said softly. “The morrow is the truest freight they bear. To date they are but small, as well as few, scarce faster than a beast although untiring. They mainly carry wagonloads of coal to feed the hungry engines in the mills and manufacturies of cloth and hardware which men like me are building ever more of—” With rising enthusiasm: “You may not understand what we are doing from such few glimpses as you got by chance. But you—but men now live who’ll see the day when this whole island is enwebbed with rails and locomotives like Behemoth’s self haul every freight, plus civil passengers, and troops and guns in time of war—a day when power does not grow from birth or sword, but out of mills and furnaces.”