By the Sword (30 page)

She tossed her head back, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"It's not that, Jonathan,” she said in a weary voice. “It's not what happened in Long Barn. It is the utter futility of clinging to hope where there is none. You'll be gone tomorrow or the next day or next week—it doesn't matter—I'll be left with nothing but memories. We were both fools to think that we could even dream. Our dreams ended that night."

He sat back on his heels as if she had struck him. He forgot everything he had been dwelling on for the last two days. Instead he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she was being a fool but her stiff, defensive posture refused him. He looked down at his hands then up at her.

"You're wrong, Kate. Nothing ended that night except a tortured and unhappy life."

She looked at him, her face twisted in anguish. “But he hasn't gone, Jonathan. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face, hear his voice. I can feel his hands and I know I am utterly powerless. Prescott will haunt me forever, Jonathan. I can't make him go away. He's in my dreams, everywhere..."

The tears streamed down her face, and she wrapped her arms tighter around her body.

Gently, Jonathan took her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Kate, Stephen Prescott is dead and the guilt for his death is my burden, not yours. Sometimes we have to learn to live with memories that we think are too horrible to bear. We have to learn to recognize them for what they are: ghosts from a past that no longer have a power to hurt us."

"But I don't understand your ghosts, Jon! Who was Mary Prescott? What did you do to cause Stephen Prescott to hate you so much? I have a right to know ... I have earned that right."

He drew a long breath. “I agree, Kate. I should have told you at the beginning. It goes back long before the war when Giles and I went to Oxford.” He paused thoughtfully. “As anyone in my family will tell you, we were a pair of wild things. We weren't there to study. We learned to drink, to fight, to play cards and to chase women. If the war had not intervened I would probably look back and think those the best days of my life. As it is...” He tailed off.

"You know, my mother always blamed Giles for leading me astray but I don't think either of us needed much leading. Giles had the luck with cards and I had a not entirely undeserved reputation with women. Giles and the others wagered no small amount that I could seduce the daughter of one our dons, a girl called Mary Woolnough.

"What made it a particular challenge was that the Woolnoughs were Puritan, unusual in Oxford at the time. Mary was betrothed to a young lawyer called Stephen Prescott.” He caught her eye. “He was the son of a farrier and by dint of his own perseverance he had turned himself into a lawyer with a promising career. He was socially ambitious and a snob. It made him easy prey. He was easily flattered. However, he learned that it was flattery at his cost after several nights of being cheated at cards and waking up dead drunk in the gutters of Oxford.

"While Giles and the others diverted Prescott, I paid court to Mary. Dear God, Kate, it was so easy. She was fifteen and so totally innocent. She was also impossibly pretty and had the sweetest nature, despite her ghastly family. Of course she fell for me without much persuasion. Why would she not? The Thornton charm can be quite irresistible,” he said without conceit. “What I had not counted on was actually falling in love with her myself. Can you imagine the irony?” He smiled bitterly at the memory.

"Her family was outraged when they found out that Mary had been meeting me secretly. I think her grandmother found some letters I had written her.” He looked sideways at Kate. “It may be difficult to believe but despite my reputation with women, my relationship with Mary was utterly innocent. I had won her but I had not seduced her to my bed. However, neither my family nor Mary's were willing to believe that. Letters were written to my father and I was summoned home in disgrace."

He closed his eyes, the bitter lines in his face reflecting the memory of his father's wrath and his mother's tears.

"I've told you that I was banished to London to redeem myself by becoming, of all things, a lawyer. Mercifully for the legal profession, the war broke out and when I returned to Oxford as an officer under Prince Rupert, naturally I sought out Mary. I found that her family had succeeded in marrying her to Prescott. Prescott, not surprisingly, had joined Parliament, and Mary was trapped in Oxford with her father and grandmother. Despite my yearning to see her, I thought I would do the honourable thing and not pursue the friendship anymore."

Jonathan pushed back his sleeve and looked at the scar on his arm. “I took this at Marston Moor. It made me pretty useless for fighting for a while and I found myself back in Oxford kicking my heels until my wound was healed. I could have had the choice of any number of court beauties but I was bored and lonely and despite my best intentions I went looking for Mary again and found her."

He drew a sharp breath and looked at Kate. “Nothing had changed, Kate. We still loved each other and she was trapped in a marriage to a man for whom she felt nothing. This time there was nothing innocent in our relationship. Over the winter months we stole as much time together as we could and inevitably became lovers.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “By spring I had run out of excuses. I had to go back to the war."

His mouth twisted in anguish at the memory of the frightful scene with Mary that had followed that news. “Mary begged me to take her with me. She pleaded with me but I left her with her family in Oxford."

"Why didn't you take her?” Kate asked

"Oh, Kate,” he said, “it was not that simple. I couldn't have her trailing after me like a draggle-tailed camp follower. You've seen it, you know the life she would have led. She was not bred for that and given the fate of the women in the King's baggage lines after Naseby, I was entirely right in that decision."

"What happened to the women?” Kate asked.

"The women, Welsh, Irish and English, were raped, mutilated and turned out to die in the fields and the lanes. It was not a proud moment for the Lord's chosen. Surely you heard the stories, even in Yorkshire?"

Kate's eyes widened and she shuddered. “I had no idea.” She paused. “Then why not bring her here to Seven Ways?"

He laughed. “Here? My mother would hardly countenance me installing my mistress, someone else's wife, under her roof! No, Kate, as I saw it I had no choice but to leave Mary in Oxford as a problem that I would sort out after the fighting ended."

"After Naseby, the war was all but lost,” he continued. “Rupert was sent west to hold Bristol, and as one of his officers I went too. The west was ill disposed to the King's forces. Goring and Grenville had seen to that,” he said angrily. “And they were too busy fighting among themselves. Fairfax laid siege to Bristol and for many good military reasons Rupert surrendered in September of that year. He went back to Oxford and was promptly cashiered by the King for cowardice."

"And did you go back to Oxford?” Kate asked.

He shook his head. “Rupert left me in the west to lend what little support I could to the lost cause. I had a bit of fun for a month or so, leading raiding parties and harrying the tail of Fairfax's army, but my luck ran out. My men were tired, hungry and demoralized. Half of them had already deserted. One morning we ran straight into a regiment of Parliament horse. I had no choice. After putting up a token resistance I surrendered."

He paused before taking a deep breath. “It was my incredible misfortune to fall into the hands of a man whose family had paid dearly for their allegiance to Parliament at the hands of Goring and his crew. He hailed from Devon and certainly had no love for the King's men. By that time I had about twenty of my men left. He incarcerated us in the tower of an old church and left us with no food and water for two days before he summoned me to his presence."

Jonathan closed his eyes. He could still see the scene of that encounter so clearly: the tallow candles flickering on the table, the rancid smell of the two troopers who had escorted him and above everything else the hatred in the eyes of the two men who faced him; the colonel because he was a royalist and Stephen Prescott because he was Jonathan Thornton.

"Is this the man?” the colonel had asked Prescott.

Prescott nodded, his eyes glittering in the light of the candle. “This is Jonathan Thornton. He is responsible for the hanging of five of our men he had taken prisoner."

Jonathan stared at him incredulously. “You lying bastard,” he spat. “I've never hung prisoners!"

Prescott's lip twitched. “Ah, but I have a witness, a personal account."

Jonathan met his eyes with contempt. “And I bet you paid him well."

The colonel thumped the table. “Be quiet. I've not given you leave to speak. You will be taken to London for trial and tomorrow five of your men hang. Captain Prescott, as we agreed, I'll leave you now."

"No!” Jonathan lunged forward as the colonel left the room. “I've never hanged prisoners and I expect the same rights of war be accorded to my men."

But the door slammed shut, leaving him at the mercy of Stephen Prescott.

Prescott laughed, a cold mirthless laugh. “If I had my way, Thornton, you would hang with your men tomorrow. Instead you'll have the pleasure of watching them die and know there is nothing you can do to prevent it."

He crossed the floor towards Jonathan and struck him hard across the face with his heavy leather gauntlet. As Jonathan buckled against the troopers at the force of the blow, Prescott hit him again then seized him by the hair, forcing him to look into his face.

"That is for Mary, you bloody adulterer. You murdering whoreson,” he hissed.

Blood ran from Jonathan's nose, and he could taste it in his mouth but he still forced himself to meet Prescott's eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked defiantly.

"You thought you could set cuckold's horns on my head, the pair of you?” Prescott said. “Well you have both paid the price. Mary is dead. Dead giving birth to your bastard."

"Dead?” Jonathan groaned and his knees gave way.

"Dead and her bastard child with her."

Jonathan sank in the grip of the two troopers as the memory of Mary's pleading came back to him. She must have known she carried his child. Why hadn't she told him?

Prescott hauled him up again but Jonathan was too far gone in grief at Mary's death to care what happened to him anymore.

"She's rotting in hell where she deserves to be,” Prescott said viciously. A cold smile spread across his face. “And you're here with me. Hell may seem like a pleasant alternative."

Prescott stood back and let the troopers finish what he had started. They stopped short of killing him and when he came around he was back in the dank tower.

His young cornet bent over him, trying to wipe the blood from his face. “What's going to happen to us, sir?” he asked anxiously.

Jonathan spat blood from his mouth. With Cornet William's help he pulled himself painfully into a sitting position. He looked around the dirty, anxious faces. What could he say? There had been no indication which five men were to die. The choice no doubt would be random.

"Tomorrow five of you will hang,” he said at last, his voice made indistinct by his bruised and swollen mouth.

His words fell into the stillness like a stone down a well.

"Sweet Jesus, why?” a taut voice had asked.

"They allege that I hanged five of their men and this is just retribution,” he said.

"But that's lies, sir,” one of them said. “We can vouch for that. You've always treated prisoners with honour."

Lies. Lies perpetrated because of me
, Jonathan thought helplessly.

"It's not what we did or didn't do,” Jonathan said. “Whether it was us or someone else, we must pay the price."

"Is there no hope? No one we can appeal to? Fairfax?” Cornet Williams sounded hopelessly young and afraid.

Jonathan shook his head. “By the time Fairfax hears of it, it will be too late. All we can do is pray and hope for a miracle."

There were no miracles and God seemed to have entirely deserted them. A steady rain fell the following morning as the small ragged, band of prisoners were paraded in the village square

"Prescott made my men draw straws,” Jonathan said, his hand tightening on Kate's. “I remember the absolute silence as they died. Cornet Williams took fifteen minutes to die, his legs thrashing wildly as he slowly choked at the end of a badly tied knot. He was only seventeen."

Far away from that scene, both in time and distance, Jonathan closed his eyes as he saw again so clearly the faces that had haunted his dreams from that day on. So many, many times he had played the episode through in his mind, wondering what he could have said or done that may have averted the ultimate tragedy of those five wasted lives.

Of all the deaths he had witnessed in the bloody years of war, his brother and his father among them, the death of those five ragged, starving men had wrought the greatest change in the reckless young man who had stolen his grandfather's horse and ridden off to war.

"Prescott never took his eyes off me,” Jonathan concluded with a shuddering breath. “He watched and he smiled. The same smile I saw as he raised his pistol against me in York."

Kate shivered. “He had his chance. Why didn't he hang you when he could?"

"He wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to live with the knowledge that it was I who was responsible for the death of my men. For what it was worth Fairfax, to his credit, was not prepared to believe the lies of one witness to my so-called atrocities and did not send me to trial. I was exchanged fairly quickly and I took ship for France as soon as I was able. The rest you know."

Kate turned her face towards him. There were tears in her eyes. Jonathan gently brushed the hair from her face.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I shouldn't have told you,” he said regretfully.

"No,” she said, “I'm glad you did. I had no idea such things went on."

He shook his head. “David Ashley protected you well. Sadly, sweetheart, mine is just one tale among many. The atrocities committed in the name of King or Parliament will never be truly counted."