The Rebel’s Daughter (5 page)

“
How do
you know that?” he whispered, wishing now he had not
asked.

“
I grew
up with a man who served with 'im. He’s been dead these two years.”
He shrugged, as if this fact made a difference. “Karce’s a drunken
brute, in charge of a drunken regiment, who would kill a man merely
to test the edge of his weapon.” Hendry’s horrified gasp was
smothered too late. “Don’t listen to me, Master,” he rushed on.
“Who knows the truth of it? When a man’s belly is full of cider
he’ll say anything.”

“
And
these Tangier soldiers? They are to fight against Monmouth?” Henry
fought to keep his voice calm.

“
Aye,”
Bayle exhaled slowly, muttering, “and may God protect those poor
boys.”

The smell of manure clogged Hendry’s
throat, and the need for fresh, untainted air became suddenly
urgent.

He leapt to his feet, sending the stool
over behind him and headed for the house, ignoring Bayle’s voice
calling after him.

He slammed heavy oak door behind him, and
took the stairs two at a time, startling a maid on her way
down.

In the comparative safety of his
room, he wrenched off his filthy work clothes and hurled them into
a corner for a maid to rescue. The words, “
a drunken brute, in charge of a
drunken regiment”
kept repeating in his head as he struggled into a clean
shirt and wrestled with the drawstrings

Father may be able to fight Karce’s men,
and perhaps Uncle Edmund could handle himself against soldiers,
though neither had ever been in a real fight before. What of Aaron?
His big brother’s only experience with a sword had been played out
on the grass on the Weare Cliffs. Surely in a proper battle he
would be killed?

His panic for his family was slowly
replaced by burning shame that Bayle’s talk of the Tangiers brought
such overpowering relief for himself. How he had argued and ranted
with both his father and uncle against being left at home,
insisting he could fight as well as any of them.

“
There’ll be no fighting,” his father had laughed. “This
isn’t a battle, it’s more of a protest under arms.”

Father had been wrong. They all had been.
King James wasn’t sending veteran fighters to meet a
protest.

* * *

On his way downstairs again,
Henry paused on the half
-landing. His mother would be with Ruth at this
time of day, and the Great Hall was a lonely place on one’s
own.

Instead, he retreated to the window seat, one
leg bent and his arms wrapped around his knee.

A heavy rainstorm had moved west, changing
to cloudless heat in the space of an hour, the stillness disturbed
by an occasional call of a bird or bleat of a sheep from the fields
beyond the courtyard walls.

Henry came to a decision. He would keep his
cowardice to himself in front of Mother and Helena. How else could
he describe the giddy relief he felt at not being expected to wield
a sword against another Englishman?

The sound of
Helena’s familiar footsteps as
she climbed the stairs brought a smile to his lips. “I’m convinced
Bayle is hiding from me.” She threw herself onto the seat beside
him, forcing him to budge to make room. “They treat me like a child
still, when I am quite old enough to be an adult. I mean, I was
betrothed this time last year, I - Henry, are you listening to me?”
She nudged him roughly.

Her voice droned on beside him like a
demented bee. She jutted her chin close to his face. “I said, have
you noticed how bad-tempered Mother is lately?”

“
She
misses Father.” Henry sighed, not looking at her. “All this talk of
fighting makes it worse.”

“
I’m
aware of that, I’m not dense,” Helena complained. “Even Lumm is
making himself scarce.”

“
Tobias
is busy. He doesn’t have time for idle chat.”

“
Why do
you always call him by his given name?” Helena asked, her head
tilted to one side.

Henry shrugged. “He calls me Henry, so I
pay him the same compliment.”

“
Exactly. As if it’s necessary to compliment a servant.” She
sniffed. “It’s not as if you need a friend, you have plenty of
those, with your sunny nature.”

Henry was about to ask whether she had
noticed any of these “friends” coming to call, of late, but
restrained himself. The only visitor they had had in the previous
month was Samuel Ffoyle.

“
To
refer to your first question,” he began. “I
have
noticed Mother’s bad temper. She’s
either raging round the house, or in her chamber, sunk in apathy. I
don’t know what to make of her. She ordered me to my room earlier,
for no reason at all.”

“
Is that
where you’re supposed to be now?” Helena slanted a look at him
through long lashes, her pigeon-wing eyes flecked with
yellow.

Her chestnut hair was wet, and hung down
her back in waves. Then he remembered she had had to wash it after
an incident in the dairy with a cow who had a particularly good
aim. The memory made him smile, though he had more sense than to
refer to it. “She won’t care where I am,” he snapped. “She spends
all her time with Ruth these days.”

He continued watching Helena from the
corner of his eye, surprised at how he had forgotten how
good-looking she was - for a sister.

She didn’t walk; she glided. She had a
unique smile that began slowly, like a flower opening up. Then as
you watched, it spread over her face, until you realised you were
smiling too.

“
You
miss her don’t you?” Helena’s voice dropped to a near
whisper.

He shrugged. “How can I miss her, when
she’s still here?”

“
Because
I do, too.” Her startling grey eyes looked suspiciously moist, and
she kept sniffing. He suppressed an impulse to wrap his free arm
round her, afraid he might open the floodgates for them both.
Instead, he leaned back against the cushions with a
sigh.

Mother had been so unpredictable since
their father left. She had abandoned her elaborate gowns, and went
around déshabillé in a loose manteau over a plain linen shift. Her
physical change upset him every bit as her mental one, though he
had no idea what to do about it. She met any display of affection
with copious tears and clasping hands, so he tended to avoid
her.

“
She’ll
be better when Father gets back,” Henry said, with forced
lightness.

“
When
Father gets back,” Helena echoed, but even less
conviction.

The sun slipped behind a cloud and the
temperature on the landing dropped. A crow on a nearby tree set up
a high-pitched screech.

Henry shivered.

“
What’s
going to happen, Helena?” he murmured, his chin on his bent
knees.

“
I don’t
know.” Helena chewed at a cuticle on her thumb, something she used
to do when she was little, though she had taken to the habit again
this past month.

“
Then
tell me about Great Grandfather Julius, and how he built Loxsbeare
for his child- bride.” At his groan, she nudged him again. “Go on,
you’re much better at storytelling than I am.”

The pleading look on her face made him laugh
aloud, shattering the tension.

“
It was
the year sixteen hundred and thirty two…”

* * *

Jonathan
’s bay Iberian mount grew restless as
he and his commanding officer, Nathaniel Wade, led their infantry
onto the moor. They had been marching for almost an hour in
blanketing darkness, the smell of peat marsh strong in their
nostrils. Keeping the men quiet proved an added burden, as an
occasional muffled retching indicated some still suffered the
effects of the rough cider they had drunk the night
before.

They had managed to negotiate the Black
Ditch without mishap. By Jonathan’s calculations, they ought to be
close to the Langmoor Rhine, though he could not be sure they had
yet passed the rock Godfrey said marked the edge of the ditch. In
this clinging mist, they could just as easily have passed it
without noticing.

Cursing the infernal Godfrey beneath his
breath, Jonathan suspecting they were going the wrong way. Briefly,
the mist parted, giving a clear view of the cavalry ahead, now
bunched close together. The snorts of startled animals colliding in
the dark as they struggled through knee deep mud.

“
Why are
they stopping?” Jonathan whispered, forced to halt.

“
They
cannot find the pludgeon,” Wade said sotto voice. “The planking
Godfrey said was set across the ditch.”

The moon was full, but the fog lay so
thick, his troop broke ranks and wandered about in the gloom. He
dared not issue an order to re-assemble, as they were still under a
strict order of silence. Johnathan cursed. Without knowing how deep
the water was, he daren’t order his men across, and risk them
drowning.

A murmur confirming that the pludgeon had
been located moved backward among the ranks, and Jonathan saw Wade
urging the men ahead.

“
Thank
goodness for tha-!” A flash and a shot split the night. Jonathan
released a low groan, in the ensuing silence, hoping the discharged
weapon was a fluke and meant nothing. Maybe the sleeping troopers
had not heard.

S
houts and a rumble of drums started up in
the distance.

The enemy was awake.

A ripple of fear ran through him and his
thighs tightened on the saddle. Feversham’s men would be upon them
in minutes.

A command to charge went up from the cavalry
ahead, followed by thundering hooves heading away from them at
speed.

Jonathan cursed again, this time in
frustration. Grey had taken his cavalry forward too soon. They had
no infantry support - and Aaron was among them.

“
May God
go with you, my son,” Jonathan murmured under his breath. He had no
idea where his brother was, but thrust thoughts of him away. Edmund
would survive, he always had.

“
The
royal troopers have been alerted!” a voice to his left brought
Jonathan’s head round to Major Wade, who had pulled up beside him.
His face was little more than a grey blur, but he was recognisable
by the huge outline of his horse.

“
That’s
obvious, man!” Jonathan snarled. “We’re too far behind. We must get
the men across the next ditch to back up Gray’s
cavalry.”

“
We
cannot find a safe place to cross!” Wade jerked his panicked horse
round.

“
We’ll
have to fire from this side of the ditch!” Jonathan yelled back.
“Battle orders! Start firing!”

There was the click and slide of muskets
being loaded, followed by volley after volley as their shots sailed
across the moor, making no impression.

“
Too
low!” Jonathan yelled. “Fire higher!”

The men obeyed, and this time their shots
found their mark. On the other side of the ditch, men screamed and
fell. But there was no time for Jonathan to feel triumphant, for
just then a massive flash and boom rent the air.

The royal cannon! Jonathan watched in
horror as the weapon carved swathes through the ranks of his men.
Bodies flew into the air or were cut to pieces, falling into the
mud to be trampled by others who filled the gaps.

“
Keep
firing.” Fist raised, Jonathan rode up and down the line, shouting
orders and rounding up stragglers, his eyes growing accustomed to
the dim light.

Instead of breaching the ditch, Gray’s
cavalry had split into two columns; one group had swung to the
right, moving steadily towards the distant glow of hundreds of tiny
lights coming from the direction of the town.

Jonathan frowned, peering ahead at those
lights. Then he gave a loud, colourful curse, his guts cramping as
it occurred to him what he was really looking at.

“
Runner!” he screamed, rewarded by a swift-footed boy who
hove into view.

“
Get
over to my Lord Grey,” he ordered the breathless boy. “Tell him
those lights aren’t the town. They’re the matchlocks being made
ready to fire. Tell Wade and the others to train their muskets on
those lights.”

The runner sped away and
Jonathan prayed he was in time. If the troopers fired first, they
would cut the
cavalry to pieces and scatter them over the
field.

The distant boom of cannon fire made
Jonathan smile, partly because it wasn’t in his direction. From the
shrieks that rose from the king’s troops, it was clear that
Monmouth’s Dutch gunners were wreaking havoc among the Dumbarton’s
Infantry; the indignant yelling of their officer to return fire
confirmed it.

Gunfire screeched toward him, followed by
a thick plume of bitter smoke that drifted across the field. The
smoke stung his nostrils, engulfing the horses” heads as they
wheeled in fright, plunging backward into the upcoming
infantry.