The Rebel’s Daughter (4 page)

The big old horse
didn’t like the
rain.

An image of Tobias’s
discontented face floated unbidden into his head. Samuel sighed,
recalling a year before when he had come across him lounging on the
cobbles outside the
Ship Inn
in St Martins Lane; a restless air and an eye for
mischief.

Over a jug of fine ale, Samuel had struck up
a conversation with the landlord.

“
Tell
me, Jim,” he lifted his jug towards Tobias, who stood with his arm
round a serving girl, making her blush. “Why’s your Tobias hanging
about with nothing to do but annoy the wenches?”

Jim
’s eyes slid sideways resignedly. “Aye,
he’s a puzzle that.” He poured a jug of ale and served another
customer, then balanced an elbow on the back of the chair opposite
Samuel. “Too proud fer this place, and restless. And him all ‘o
three and twenty. Dunno what’s to become ‘o him.”

Samuel nodded, thoughtful, just as Emily
Lumm sashayed into his line of sight.

“
Master
Ffoyle.” She bobbed a slow curtsey, which for all its simplicity
held a solicitation. She impaled him with her brown-eyed stare in a
look Samuel recalled from her childhood. As if she knew something,
but had promised not to tell. The years had given Tobias” mother a
more voluptuous body, but she still possessed the bearing of a
girl.

And that
look
.

After a brief word with Sir Jonathan, Tobias
had been installed at Tobias at Loxsbeare in the post of
steward.

His new employer found the young man
entertaining and intelligent, with ideas of his own to improve the
estate. Even Bayle accepted him as an asset without resentment, and
Henry certainly liked him.

The older son, Aaron, didn’t seem to take
much notice. His position as crown prince of Loxsbeare was secure,
giving him no reason to be on the lookout for usurpers.

Helena, on the other hand, cast suspicious
eyes in the direction of Tobias. Headstrong young man that he was,
Tobias teased the girl without a thought for how she, or the other
servants, might view such forward behavior.

What did his future hold, should Sir
Jonathan not return?

Fat drops of rain drummed onto Samuel’s
cloak. His horse nickered and shook his mane, sending an arching
spray of water into the air.

Samuel sighed again, too weary to tackle
that particular problem today, and gave himself up to the old
horse’s canter until he turned into his own gate.

* * *

Jonathan
’s boots scuffed the well-worn steps,
an occasional clang of a sword against stone followed by a muffled
curse, audible from below. Evidently, he was not the only one who
found St Mary’s church tower a hard climb.

Below the tower, the River Parret snaked
like molten silver through the centre of Bridgwater, toward the
flat expanse of marshland. Jonathan bowed to the man in head-to-toe
black at the parapet, the garter star emblazoned on his breast. He
stood taller than most men, with the air of someone used to the
subservience of others. In his case, though, his status had been
achieved later than most.

The wind lifted his black periwig from his
shoulders, threatening to tear his wide brimmed hat from his head
and launching it into Cornhill, below.

On any other day this would have amused
him. Yet today, his handsome features twisted into an expression of
irritation. James, Duke of Monmouth was a troubled man in no mood
for levity.

Lord Grey handed the Duke a spyglass, as
Captain Hucker and Major Wade emerged through the low door onto the
roof.

“
Would you say they are about three miles
away?” Jonathan asked, his spyglass trained onto the rows of white
tents dotted with red coated figures spread on the moor; men
Monmouth once commanded to defeat the Scots Covenanters at Bothwell
Bridge in seventy-nine. Friends who were now his mortal
enemies.

“
More
like four,” Lord Grey said. “Our plan might work.”

“
What
might work?” Jonathan folded his arms across his chest and regarded
Grey with suspicion, his normal stance since he had learned how
manipulative the man could be.

“
Attack
under cover of darkness.” Gray’s unctuous voice made Jonathan
squirm. “If we surprise them, we have a good chance at
victory.”

“
Better,
maybe, but not good,” Jonathan muttered. “What about the original
plan to blockade the town?” This, too, seemed an equally bad move
as the townsfolk were unlikely to commit their cattle and grain to
what they must by now consider a lost cause.

“
A ploy
only, Jon.” Grey waved a dismissive hand. “Attack is our best
option.”

Jonathan fell silent, resigned to the fact
that Grey always spoiled for a fight. With flattery and false
assurances, he had swayed Monmouth to his way of thinking. The Duke
still believed they could reach London, where, Grey had convinced
him, the Capital would welcome him as their king.

“
Feversham's men are well-trained, many with battle
experience,” Jonathan said. “Churchill is a good soldier; and then
there are Percy Karce’s men.” Those infamous “Lambs”; men who
wouldn’t be cowed by a bunch of farmers wielding nothing more
threatening than sharpened scythes attached to pitchforks, though
Jonathan forbore to say so aloud.

“
They
look to have no more men than I.” Monmouth swung his spyglass over
the horizon “However, I know those men. They will
fight.”

“
Tell
His Majesty what you told me.” Lord Grey beckoned to a
nervous-looking young man in shabby clothes who hung back by the
tower door. He had given his name as Godfrey, and claimed he
possessed useful intelligence.

Jonathan flicked Grey a glance of
distaste. He wished the man wouldn’t insist on calling Monmouth
that. Wasn’t the duke already full enough of his own importance, as
it was? He had even started retelling the story of Lucy Walter
having married King Charles when a prince in exile, a claim
dismissed as lies by his father, King Charles, years
before.

Godfrey crept forward, kneading his felt
hat in both hands. “There be two thousand on the moor, sir - Your
Majesty. “Bout a thousand in Middlezoy and the same in Otherey. But
they don’t know the ditches like I does.” He sidled closer to the
Duke. “If you makes for “ere, sir.” Godfrey dragged a grubby finger
across a hand drawn map pulled from inside his coat, “…go along the
old Bristol road towards Bawdrip, and then turn south along Bradney
Lane and Marsh Lane. It’s the longer route, but your chances of
being seen are low.” His dirty-nailed finger stabbed at the page.
“Here be the Black Ditch, which is marked by a large rock. I could
get you the other side of the Bussex Rhine and right into their
camp before they know what’s happenin’.”

Monmouth lowered his spyglass
and stared at the man down his nose, then raised the glass
again.
“The
horses are set far apart from the foot. If we can infiltrate their
lines and keep them apart, we may have the advantage. Our spies
tell us their discipline is not good.”

“
Indeed
not,” Captain Hucker gasped, still winded from the climb. “They
drink themselves into a stupor on local cider every
night.”

“
No
guards have been posted,” Nathaniel Wade added. “Though they have
guns laid out on the town road.”

“
We
could avoid those by making a detour north of Chedzoy.” Grey arched
a brow at each of them, looking more sly than reassuring. “Our
chances of victory are doubled.”

“
The
Cavalry could lead, your Majesty.” Gray’s lip curled into a leering
half-smile.

Besides, by now the whole countryside knew
what they were about. Perhaps anything was better than dodging
Ogelthorpe and his troop through the countryside, until they ended
up back at Lyme where they started, or being captured and hanged by
Feversham’s men.

Nothing had gone the way he had thought it
would. They should have been in London by now, cheered on by an
enthusiastic crowd, not still being harried across Somerset by the
King’s troops. Besides, his lodgings were squalid, and the landlord
sour-tempered, although more civil since being assured his guest
intended paying his bill.

Most of their men were camped out in
people’s houses, or in fields sodden by days of rain, with no
shelter at all, ransacking the local farms for horse feed. No
wonder Bridgwater had been less than happy to receive
them.

Their march into Taunton had
been the high point of the expedition. The celebration that
followed at Captain Hacker’s house was reminiscent of those heady
days of the
Green Ribbon Club
, when they would drink the night away at the
Kings Head, speculating on a world under Monmouth’s
kingship.

Those days were an illusion, Jonathan
realised now, and King Charles, aware of his bastard son’s
involvement in a traitorous society, had protected him, and in
doing so, his friends too.

It was one thing drinking to Monmouth’s
health and damning the Duke of York when King Charles was still
alive. Now, King James had the perfect opportunity to exact his
revenge on the nephew he hated.

Jonathan glanced across at Monmouth, whose
head was bent over Geoffrey’s plans, a frown on his handsome face.
Was his resolve still strong? Jonathan’s brother, Edmund seemed to
think so, but then for years Edmund had been straining against his
domestic tethers in search of adventure.

Now, they were cornered, unable to get to
Bristol, let alone London, with that Frenchman out on the moor
biding his time.

“
We
shall do it.” Monmouth snapped the spyglass shut for the third time
in as many minutes. “That Huguenot would never expect it.” He
handed the spyglass over his shoulder without looking to see who
took it.

“
We
march tonight at midnight, with strict orders to maintain total
silence. Every man is charged with dispatching the man beside him
with a knife, should he utter a sound to betray our presence.” He
looked into each of their faces in turn, gave a curt nod, then
clattered down the tower steps, the others following.

“
How
many of the men do even have knives?” Jonathan muttered. Sighing,
he pushed himself away from the wall and set off back to the inn
and his flea-ridden bed in the hope of a few hours’
sleep.

Chapter 3

Henry leaned against a wooden
stall and watched his sister through a crack in the half-closed
door
, as she
stomped over clumps of wet hay scattered across the
yard.

“
She
doesn’t know I’m here, does she?” Bayle said from behind
him.

Henry jumped and swung round, having
thought himself alone. “No, she’s going toward the
kitchens.”

Bayle half rose in a stance that preceded
a bow, halted by Hendry’s impatient gesture that sent him back down
again. Henry sported more manure on his clothes than a cowshed, and
had hay sticking out of his shirt. This was hardly a time for
formalities.

“
I
suppose I cannot avoid her forever.” Bayle hooked his foot round a
stool and dragged it toward him, gesturing Henry to sit.

“
What
does she want?” Henry asked, straddling the stool.

“
She
read something about Colonel Percy Kirke in the
Gazette
. When asked, Lumm said he knew
nothing about the man, so he warned me she would search me out
instead.”

“
Who is
he? This Kirke, and what do you know about him?”

Bayle picked up a small tool and applied it
to a piece of leather.

“
The
Queen Dowager brought Tangier as part of her dowry when she married
King Charles.”

“
I know.
Father told me about Tangier, though I don’t recall much. It’s a
far-off place he said, very hot, and with savage
people.”

“
No more
than our own,” Bayle said under his breath, then continued, louder.
“Kirke maintained the garrison there, in command of the regiment.
Their emblem was a Paschal Lamb, which earned them the nickname
“Karce’s Lambs”.

“
A
strange emblem for fighting men,” Henry mused, frowning.

“
I
believe the Lamb is from the house of Braganza, and
signifies
Christian men against the
Infidels.”

“Don’t the
Moroccans and Berbers call us infidels too?” Henry asked, aware he
was being provoking. However, at least his present audience
wouldn’t threaten him with a whipping for insolence.

“
I
believe so, Master, though if you don’t mind, I won’t argue the
point with you just now.” He twisted the softened leather round his
fingers, snapping it gently. “As I was saying, Kirke has a fearsome
reputation. His men are brutal, taking pride in their
savagery.”