The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) (29 page)

CHARLES CARRINGTON WAS
right about Lord Willoughby. Within six weeks he had so impressed Assembly members with his intellect and charm that they had voted to appoint him governor without further ado.

Walrond had no alternative but to accept their wishes. There had been no serious threat of trouble from anti-Royalists and since Willoughby had issued a cogent rebuttal of a law recently passed by the English Parliament prohibiting trade between Barbados and the Dutch, the island had been peaceful and industrious.

Much had been done to strengthen its defences – heavy cannon had been acquired and set to face the approaches to the two principal harbours at Bridgetown and Oistins, new fortifications had been constructed around both harbours and the governor’s militia had been reinforced by the recruitment and training of five hundred regulars. Many of these had faced Parliamentarian forces before at Marston Moor or Naseby, where they had been captured and despatched to the Caribbean.
Willoughby had brought some of them over from Antigua and Montserrat. Garrisons had been posted at Holetown and Speightstown as well as at Bridgetown and Oistins. If a Parliamentary fleet did come it would find the island well prepared to defend itself.

Meanwhile, prices for Barbados sugar continued to rise, more and more land had been put to growing cane and improved techniques for planting, harvesting, milling, boiling and curing were being developed. The attacks by runaways had all but stopped and the Lytes’ estate had returned to normal. Adam had brought regular reports of Willoughby’s skill in handling the Assembly members, even Walrond’s supporters, and had developed a respect for the man almost as great as Charles’s.

Better still, Adam had at last found a ship whose captain he trusted to take Thomas home. It would arrive in Barbados at the end of October and depart for the return journey two weeks later. As he had warned, finding a safe passage had not been easy. Most of the trading ships were Dutch, heading for Amsterdam, and the English captains were villains who would think nothing of selling an unaccompanied passenger to an agent on another island or feeding him to the sharks. Adam had been reassured that an old friend would also be a passenger on the ship.

Now, at last, the waiting was almost over and Thomas would be going home.

The invitation to Lord Willoughby’s banquet arrived by special messenger at the Lytes’ house. His lordship requested the pleasure of the company of Adam and Mary Lyte to celebrate his first year as governor.

‘Who else will be there?’ asked Mary, studying the invitation.

‘Most of the leading landowners, I expect. Probably not the Gibbes.’

Mary feigned disappointment. ‘Such a pity. I was so looking forward to making their acquaintance. And it would be interesting to see how Lord Willoughby handles them.’

‘With a twenty-foot pike, I should imagine. And even that would be too close for comfort.’ Thomas tried never to think about the brutes.

Charles had also been invited to the party and at four in the afternoon on the appointed day he arrived to collect Adam and Mary in a handsome black and gold carriage borrowed for the occasion. Charles himself was resplendent in a sparkling white shirt, a silk coat and silk breeches. Adam suffered nothing in comparison but Mary outshone them both. Her hair fashionably pinned up, her mother’s pearls around her throat and her pale blue gown decorated with pink ribbons sewn on to the shoulders and sleeves, she was ravishing.

‘You look splendid, my dear,’ said Charles in his bluff way. ‘I doubt there’ll be a pair of eyes not green with envy or wide in admiration.’

‘Thank you, Charles, you are most gallant. And what do you think, Thomas? Will I do for the governor’s dinner party?’

Thomas, a little flustered at being asked his opinion on such a matter, managed to assure Mary that she would put the other ladies to shame. Looking at her, he thought that it might be just the occasion for Charles to ask Adam for her hand. Insist on it, in fact. He and Patrick waved them off and settled down to their own dinner. While they ate, they talked.

‘He is going to marry her, isn’t he?’ asked Thomas.

‘I do hope so,’ replied Patrick. ‘Mr Carrington worships her and she’d be wasted on Master Perkins.’

‘Then we must hope that her brother sees sense.’

After a while, Patrick asked, ‘Have you ever thought of marrying, Thomas?’

‘Only once. I met a lady in Oxford. Tobias Rush had her raped and murdered.’

‘Why?’

‘She betrayed him to save me.’

‘She must have loved you.’

‘I think she did. And you, Patrick? Would you be permitted to marry?’

‘The law does not recognize marriage between slaves.’

‘But you could have children?’

‘Yes, with the Lytes’ consent, I could. Perhaps I will.’

When dinner was over, they talked of England, of Barbados, of sugar and of the tricks fate plays. ‘In one matter, at least, Patrick, you are fortunate,’ said Thomas, lighting a new candle. ‘You know what your place is. It is here with Adam and Mary. I am no longer sure where I belong. Royal cryptographer, uncle, prisoner, indentured servant, runaway, guest. I wonder which of them I am.’

‘Can you not be all of them and more besides? What about scholar, bookseller, mathematician, brother, friend? We all show different faces to different people, even I. The field slaves do not see me as you do or as Miss Lyte does.’

‘I suppose so. It would be tedious otherwise, although Monsieur de Montaigne, as usual, had something apposite to say on the matter.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Patrick with a smile. By now
he had heard a good deal about Thomas’s favourite philosopher.

‘He said, “I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”’

‘He wasn’t an indentured man, then?’

‘He was not, although he was something of a recluse.’

It was approaching midnight when the carriage carrying his lordship’s guests returned. Judging by their mood and the colour of Charles’s face, they had enjoyed themselves. Despite the hour Mary insisted on telling them about the food.

His lordship had admitted that, by the standards of London or Paris, dinner was a modest affair but as few of the guests had dined in either city they had all thought it sumptuous. Crêpes and pastries basted in honey had been followed by mullet in a sweet and sour onion sauce, chicken pies, stewed lamb and pork in a wine sauce with fried beans and carrot fritters. Sweet lemon cream with coconut biscuits had been served as dessert.

‘It is several courses fewer than one might serve at Parham,’ Willoughby had confided, ‘but I trust no one will be disappointed.’ He told them that he had taken the precaution of bringing his chef with him. ‘I employed him when we were in Holland with the king and have never regretted it.’

‘It was excellent,’ Mary said, adding hastily, ‘although of course no better than Patrick serves.’

‘Quite right, my dear,’ agreed Adam. ‘And his lordship’s news was even more excellent. A Dutch ship has arrived. It reports that our new king, having sailed from France to Scotland, marched south and won an overwhelming victory over Cromwell and Fairfax near Worcester and by now will be in London. Cromwell is dead and the people have risen for the king. Is that not splendid news?’

‘Splendid indeed,’ agreed Charles, ‘and there is more. The Parliamentary fleet is no more than a rabble of refugees. The risk of invasion has gone.’

‘His lordship has ordered celebrations,’ said Mary, ‘so celebrations it will be.’

The news was not only splendid but astonishing. How the king could have led an army of Scots to a victory over Cromwell’s well-equipped, highly trained New Model Army, Thomas could not imagine. At Naseby the Model Army had crushed the Royalists, including Prince Rupert’s celebrated cavalry, so how had they now come to be defeated? ‘Is Lord Willoughby sure of this information?’ he asked.

Adam was a little put out. ‘His lordship would not have ordered celebrations if he were not sure, Thomas.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘And,’ added Mary, ‘you will be going home to a country at peace and with a king back on the throne. If that is not a cause for celebrations, Thomas, what is? We must pray for the safe arrival of your ship. Now, gentlemen, it has been a long evening and with your permission I shall retire. Perhaps you would come and assist me, Patrick.’

‘Certainly, Miss Lyte. Good night, sirs.’

‘Mary’s relationship with Patrick is unusual, is it not?’ asked Thomas when they had left.

‘It is certainly unusual,’ replied Adam, ‘but my sister and I trust Patrick completely. He himself is unusual and not merely in his intelligence and sensitivity. He is extraordinarily loyal.’

On the last day of October Thomas’s ship had not arrived and his spirits were low. He wandered around the estate, watching cane
being harvested and taken to the mill, listening to slaves singing while they worked and sniffing the sweetness in the air, but thinking all the while of home. The first frosts would have come, the trees – all but the ancient oaks of the New Forest whose leaves clung to their branches until December – would be bare and the countryside would be closing down for the winter. On this island he missed the seasons of England. No spring flowers, no long summer evenings, no autumn mists, no winter snow. Just a drier season and a wetter season. A man could easily tire of that.

As he walked slowly back to the house, Thomas saw Adam waving from the parlour. He quickened his pace.

‘It’s here, Thomas,’ called Adam. ‘The ship arrived this morning. It will take a week to unload its cargo, revictual and load the sugar, and then you’ll be off.’

Thomas could hardly believe it. Only seven more days. The Atlantic crossing, England and home. He would find Margaret and the girls and he would do whatever it took to ensure that Rush faced the justice he had avoided for so long. ‘Thank the Lord. I was losing hope.’

Adam clapped Thomas on the back. ‘Patrick will produce one of his feasts for us tonight. I am delighted for you, Thomas.’

IT WAS A
long week. Much as he would have liked to find something to occupy his mind and tire his body, Thomas dared not leave the estate for fear of meeting the brutes. With only hours before he boarded ship for England that would have been unbearable. So he passed the days walking and reading, helping Patrick in the kitchen and in the evenings enjoying the company of the Lytes and twice of Charles Carrington.

They plied him with questions about his shop and his nieces, offered generous advice on how to find Tobias Rush and what to do with him when he did and assured him repeatedly that his family would be well and overjoyed to see him home safely. Thomas tried his best to believe them. Charles, ever the man of action, recommended swift retribution for Rush and suggested a number of unpleasant ways of exacting it.

‘Whatever you do, do not trust the courts,’ he advised. ‘The man will bribe them as he bribed his gaoler in Oxford. You must deal with him yourself, Thomas. If I could come with you, I
would. Would you care for instruction in the matter of swordplay?’ Thomas declined politely. Charles was insistent. ‘Then have you worked out a plan?’

Thomas had not worked out a plan and did not see how he could until he had some idea of where Rush was and how Margaret and the girls were. He would get home and proceed from there. A disappointed Charles wished him good fortune.

On the morning of Thomas’s departure, a cheerful party boarded the carriage arranged by Adam to take them to Oistins, from where the ship would set sail at noon. The carriage rattled down the hill and turned along the coast road. They passed through Holetown, crossed several narrow bridges built over the streams that ran down the gullies from the hills, and were soon nearing Bridgetown. There the road twisted and turned through outlying settlements, before dividing into two branches. They took the left branch which ran in a wide circle around the town and carried on to Oistins. The sky was cloudless and the sea glimmered in the sun. I shall remember my last day in prison as a beautiful one, thought Thomas. It was the first time he had been in Oistins since the announcement of the king’s death and it would be the last. He was going home.

They finally came to a halt beside the Oistins harbour master’s house on the quayside. There Charles jumped out, followed by Adam and Thomas, and Patrick handed Mary down. A large crowd had gathered around the harbour, most of them gazing towards the horizon. With hands protecting their eyes from the morning sun, they too looked past the few ships anchored in the harbour and out to sea.

‘The devil and all his whores,’ growled Charles, ‘are those warships I see?’

The others followed his gaze. Three ships were anchored outside the harbour. Each one carried cannon and they could just make out the movement of men on their decks. There were hundreds of them. They were certainly warships and they carried marines. A fleet had arrived overnight and the harbour was blocked. If it was a Royalist fleet it would have entered the harbour and anchored there. They must be Cromwell’s ships. So much for the Parliamentary fleet being a rabble.