Treason's Daughter (42 page)

Hen looks at the king and thinks of his children. Princess Elizabeth, they say, has not stopped weeping. Prince Henry vowed that he would be torn to pieces before he did Parliament's will. She imagines the pugnacious stance of an eight-year-old trying to be a man, his pinched white face and his little-boy bravery, and she feels herself begin to cry.

Stupid, stupid. Why cry for a stranger's boy when her own is still in peril? Why do You make it so difficult, Lord God? Why do You crush us? Why do You grind Your heel when we are already prostrate? Is it because we killed Your son?

The king starts to speak. The crowd is held back by the soldiers. They inch forward to try and hear him, but the pikes push them backwards again.

At last, Hen spots Ned. His back is to the king and he scans the crowd, watching for rebellion. There's something odd about his face, something troubling. She tries to decipher it, but the king is speaking, and she supposes she ought to listen. Only the regicides can hear him clearly; the rest are too far.

‘A subject and a sovereign are clear different things,' he is saying. His words are pulled away by the icy wind.

The man with the axe steps forward at last, fingering the edge. Charles' voice drops lower. Hen can't hear his words, but Ned can, there at the front.

‘Take care they do not put me to pain,' he says, his voice more tentative than Ned has ever heard it. Oh Lord take pity on him, Ned finds himself thinking. On us all.

A voice behind Hen says: ‘We ordered a small block. For a small man – you see the joke?' But no one laughs and Hen is not the only one to turn and look at the speaker with contempt, so that he mumbles something and looks at his feet.

The king hands Juxon his garter. ‘Remember,' he says.

King Charles looks awkward as he kneels. He has to lean too far over, and it makes him look undignified at the last. The axe flashes up to the sky and falls with the dull thwack of a man's soul dispatched. With it comes a long, keening sigh from the crowd which rolls down Whitehall, through St James and beyond Westminster to where the Thames coils, frozen and still.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A
FTERWARDS IS A DAZE. EYES SLIDE AWAY FROM EYES; WORDS
die on lips. Everywhere she looks, there is a blinding uncertainty. An old man, with tears running down the lines of his face, raises his eyes to the heavens. Is he looking for thunderbolts, or paeans from the angels?

The king's headless body lies awkwardly on the scaffolding. His head is carried away, rattling around a threadbare basket. Someone made that, Hen thinks. Someone whittled and bound and worked that basket, watching it grow. Expecting apples, perhaps. Or loaves. Instead, a king's sightless eyes stare up from its depths.

The mood begins to shift as they disperse, shepherded away by troops of horse. A few boys break free from the cordon and run forward to dab handkerchiefs in the king's blood, which drips down the black cloth of the scaffold. One goes down under a flurry of nailed boots, but more escape, pocketing their prizes and melting into the crowd.

There's a reckless wonderment now. They can look at each other again. Their feet shuffling through the slush whisper: We killed a king, we killed a king.

A raven circles above, cawing: You killed your king, you killed your king.

Their voices return, and there's a low murmur. The same question rattling around different mouths, taking different forms: ‘And now what?'

Hen holds onto Will's hand and looks up into his face as he says: ‘Are you bearing up, my darling?'

She nods, the lie of omission curdling inside her.

He says: ‘I must go back. I'm sorry. There are some loose papers to deal with.'

She feigns disappointment. ‘What more use your papers, Will? He's dead, isn't he?'

‘Come with me,' he says. ‘We should be together. It won't take long.'

She looks past his shoulder and sees Ned, standing to one side of a handful of soldiers. He looks detached, incongruously still against their evident sense of purpose. An older man is talking to the troop, all flailing arms and urgency.

Ned looks crushed. He is motionless and hunched amid the buzzing crowd. Her heart leaps in sympathy for him. And then catches.

Hen turns to Will, kissing him quickly. ‘I love you,' she says.

She makes her way through the crowd, pushing and shoving against the flow. As she nears Ned, he sees her. He takes a step forward, then glances sideways. He shakes his head, and she pauses. He looks to one side again, to where the handful of soldiers stand with their backs to him, watching their colonel harangue them.

Unobserved, he mouths: ‘Go. Go quickly.'

She pushes through bodies. Her elbow rams the head of a short woman who swears at her. She steps on toes and curses chase her as she cleaves her way through the mass of people. The river? Too crowded and slow. No. Think. It's frozen solid. She can't imagine the soldiers skittering along the ice in their great boots. They will have to fight this crowd. Dare she risk it?

She remembers the last time the Thames froze. She was ten, or thereabouts. Ned was twelve, and still happy. They went down at Temple stairs with their father and ran around on the ice, laughing at each other's slipping and sliding. They drank hot, spiced wine from the stalls and ate sausages, huddling around the ice fire. They had watched the mummers and the archery contests. The winner had bright red hair, she remembers. It seemed to burn against the frosted ice.

Ned and Sam had competed in a race of their own invention. It involved running to a mark and dropping to their knees, and then sliding along the ice as far as they could go. She remembers the cold in her toes, and the helpless laughter as they slid past her, Sam pulling theatrical faces, Ned grinning at her. Until at last they had stopped sliding, keeling over onto the ice, arms outstretched like fallen angels, laughing at the sky.

The memory takes her down to the river. It is already dusk. A gloomy, short winter's day. She edges down onto the steps; the wind rattling up the frozen river steals her breath. There are dark figures on the ice. She pauses on the bottom step, the now familiar fear returning. ‘What should I do?' she shouts to the silent sky. ‘What should I do?'

Ned's troop rounds the corner into the street where Hen lives. It is near dark and the linkboys' torches throw leaping shadows on the ground. The crunch of their feet and the clanking of their swords send people scuttling into the dark corners. Ned catches sight of Roberts' face in the light from a flame just as one old man hurries for cover. He recognizes the boy's smile, his satisfied sense of his own power. I was him once, thinks Ned. He feels as old as Methuselah.

He has told them that Henrietta is away, staying in the country with her husband's parents during the disturbances. Will is at the Temple, killing the king. He said that Sam was there alone. Unaided. He's hoping – praying – that Sam will have left already. Somehow he will cover up signs of any complicity, any succour from his sister. He will protect her. Lord, he prays, help me protect her. Guide me.

They come to the door.

‘Show us the way, Ned,' says Colonel Hacker, and he finds himself nodding.

He finds himself gripping the door as it is pulled away from him. He finds himself stumbling backwards as a woman rushes out. She is tall and wide, and her skirts, he notices with staggering slowness, barely reach the tops of her big, incongruous boots.

‘Excuse me, madam,' Ned says, but there is something not right here, something altogether awry. Something familiar and all wrong about her form in the darkness.

Roberts pushes past him, taking the stairs two at a time. He is eager, bristling. He needs to prove himself. Ned chases the boy up the stairs, shaken out of his reverie, the discord still tugging at his brain.

Hen watches his figure walk quickly down the dark street. The soldiers ignore him, thank the Lord. If they looked closer, they would see the undone ties at the back of the dress – the only one that would fit him, the one she had worn today to watch the king die. They would see the largeness of his feet, the stubble underneath the overhanging cowl of the shawl. If they'd had time, they could have made him more convincing. Still, it's dark now and easier for a woman, even an unconvincing one, to flit through the advancing soldiers.

She shivers in her thin underlinens. There is a clattering on the stairs. She grabs the nearest thing – the old shirt Sam was wearing. It is stiff with dried blood, but she pulls it over her head. They will take if for a nightshirt. Perhaps it will fit Will. As she pulls it down over her head, she smells Sam – earthy and familiar. Could she smell him when they shared a womb, she wonders?

Ned bursts into the room, just behind Roberts. And there, in front of him, in an oversized, bloodstained shirt, is Henrietta. She looks like the girl he remembers – fierce and proud.

She starts to speak, hands raised, looking not at Ned but at the
boy beside him, who is shouting. Shouting words that Ned does not catch. But then there is a flash, which he doesn't understand, and the sound of a shot. And suddenly she is falling, falling, and the fresh blood spreads fast on her brother's shirt.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

May 1649

T
HERE ARE WOMEN EVERYWHERE. BAREFOOT WOMEN WITH
mud grimed into the cracks of their heels. Tattered women with patched-up cloaks that billow like sails. They are thin, these women. They have sharp, angled cheekbones and desperate faces. They huddle in groups; walk abreast; sit crying in corners.

To Ned, used to being surrounded by men, it is like moving though a shadow world. They pull at his coat, jeer at him as he passes. He is frightened, he finds. Sea-green ribbons flutter from their clothes, the mark of the radicals. A tumble of grey and misery and green. Their desperation sticks to him like treacle. He wades through them, clutching his secret dispatches with painfully tight fingers.

They want food for their children. They want their husbands and sons released from the army, paid and sent home. They want the release from prison of the Leveller martyrs, men who raise the possibility of a new world and a new order. Men who say the unsayable: that equality before God is possible, and desirable. Most
of all, they want to be heard. They have marched on Parliament before, these women, and been sent home with jeers and taunts by the MPs. Go home to the dishes. Send your husbands. Rightly, thinks Ned, as he pushes his way through. Women have no place in public life. It is hard enough, in these times, for men to grapple with the future.

They shout slogans and jostle at him. He feels himself caught by their passion. He finds himself next to a pretty young woman. She looks prosperous, as if she is strolling along to the river for a picnic. She sees Ned looking at her and stares back as she opens her mouth wide to shout and call. Something about arbitrary power. The rule of law trampled. He can see her pink tongue and the blackness at the back of her throat.

What a time he has picked to arrive at Westminster. He should have visited Lucy first, cooed over her growing belly. She would never march with these women. Never expose herself in this way to censure and ridicule. Henrietta, however… The thought brings him to a sudden halt. His heart beats wildly, loudly, muffling the sound of the women's cries. Women behind him bump into him as he stands there, making him stumble.

He ducks sideways into an alleyway, looking for a way round the demonstration, and trips over something. He looks down to see the body of a child. A small boy, stripped naked. His stomach is bulging; his face is peaceful. If Ned had not seen starving children in Bristol, he would have missed the signs. The sharp-ridged ribs above the swollen belly. The hollowed-out cheeks and the dark-rimmed eyes.

Ned feels the nausea rising. Last night's pie sits like a reproach on his stomach. It cost a small fortune. The price of food has
soared. Famine grips a land already soaked in blood. Is this the taste of hell before we shape His kingdom?

Ned squats on his heels beside the body of the dead boy. He feels sweat breaking out on his forehead and prickling at his armpits. He tries to force down the boy's eyelids with a shaking hand, but they will not close. The boy is beginning to turn, lying here amid the rubbish. Jesus, keep us. Jesus, keep me.

In his other hand is the petition, thrust at him by one of the women. He smooths out the creases in the paper. He reads:

Since we are assured of our creation in the image of God, and of an interest in Christ equal unto men, as also of a proportionable share in the freedoms of this Commonwealth, we cannot but wonder and grieve that we should appear so despicable in your eyes as to be thought unworthy to petition or represent grievances to this honourable House
.

Lord, grant them wisdom, thinks Ned. What have we unleashed if women can write these words to Parliament? Equal unto men, the strumpets. Where will it end?

He pushes himself upright, tapping his fingers on the bag carrying the dispatches, abstractedly drumming out a marching tune on the dark leather. He must avoid the women or push his way through. He must deliver his letters. Yet he stands still. His legs are moulded to the earth, trapping him in this alleyway with a dead boy and an urgent, undelivered message.

His regiment is in Bristol. The Levellers are deep in its rank and file. Some of the officers are close to mutiny. They talk of arrears of pay and abuses by the army grandees. They rage at the
raising of troops to conquer Ireland. They spit at the Council of State, the body set up by the Rump Parliament to govern in the absence of the king. It fits awkwardly in the king-shaped hole, like a piece of ill-made puzzle jammed in arbitrarily.

Ned must get his message through. He must let the grandees know how it stands in Bristol. Who is safe, and who is suspect. He thinks of the pamphlet he carries, which circulates in his regiment. He feels it banging against his thigh, feels the heat of it through the leather. Not the king's fault, but ours. That is what it says. Our fault. My fault.

He knows it by heart, has pored over it by candlelight, recited it to the clip-clop rhythm of his walking horse.

He whispers the words to the dead boy: ‘Oh! The ocean of blood we are guilty of. Oh! The intolerable oppression we have laid upon our brethren of England. Oh! How these deadly sins of ours do torment out consciences.'

The boy is silent. His open eyes are a reproach. They stare sightlessly at the evening sky.

Ned whispers it again. ‘Do you think he is right, boy? The one who wrote the pamphlet? Are we guilty? Am I guilty?'

The boy does not answer, and Ned finds himself becoming angry. He shakes the boy. He hears the crack of ribs and drops the body down again into the filth. He weeps then, tears dripping down onto the boy's greying skin.

‘Ned.'

Will's voice is flat. It tells Ned nothing. He looks down to
see Blackberry twisting his arms round his father's legs in the doorway.

‘Un-le Neh,' says Blackberry, reaching out two chubby arms, demanding to be lifted.

Ned leans down and picks him up, suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of him. He feels his knees quiver. There is a possibility of fainting, and he leans against the wall, Blackberry in his arms.

‘Can I come in, Will?'

Will looks at him with an impassive face. He says nothing, but walks back into the room, leaving the door open. Ned carries Blackberry through. Standing in the corner with wide, frightened eyes is Will's sister. Patience, is it?

She looks terrified. Ned almost checks behind him to see who it is that she is afraid of. He stops himself.

‘Patience,' says Will, ‘could you take Blackberry?'

She nods and comes forward to take the boy. She avoids Ned's eyes with a heavy effort. Only when she has closed the door behind her does Will speak.

‘What are you doing here, Ned?'

‘I wanted to see you. I am here for two days. Then leaving for Bristol. I have volunteered to fight in Ireland, under Cromwell. We will embark soon. I am not sure for how long.'

‘Want to kill some papists now, Ned? Not enough blood spilled here for you?'

Ned feels an angry retort spitting on his tongue. He has become adept, he thinks, at controlling his thoughts and his actions. He breathes. ‘It is true,' he says, trying to keep his voice low and calm, ‘that I want to be in action again.'

‘Why?'

He shrugs. ‘It is my job.'

That is not it. Not it at all. How can he say it to Will? He wants clarity again. He wants certainty. He wants to feel God's breath on his cheek as the papists flee His wrath. He wants orders. A chain of command. He wants the roar and thunder of battle to push his thoughts from his head, like air from a pig's bladder. He breathes in.

‘And how are you, Will?' He wants to reach across and touch his friend's shoulder. He clasps his hands behind his back.

Will shrugs. ‘I am alive. Not living, perhaps. Breathing. I have Blackberry. Otherwise, I am not sure I would bother. Breathing, I mean. Last night, Ned, there was a shower of meteors. Did you know that? And I looked out of the window, and I felt… nothing. Complete and total nothing.'

‘It will pass.'

‘Will it? Since we buried her, Ned, there is only one emotion that I feel with any depth. Hate. Lord knows how I hate.'

‘Will, I…'

Will holds a hand up imperiously. ‘Hate, Ned. I have been scoured clean of love. Just a pinprick left for my son. Nothing else. Do you want to know who I hate, Ned?'

Ned nods, mutely.

‘The dead king. The living queen. The Members of Parliament. The women who walked past my window moaning about empty bellies. The judges. Hattie, who has done nothing wrong, but who cries and cries and makes me envy her tears. Sam, for being here and putting her in danger. Then writing a jolly fucking letter from Prince Rupert's hind tit about his daring escape. He should be getting my letter back about now, Ned, so
I suspect he'll be a bit less fucking jolly.'

Will walks over to the table, where a flask of wine is sitting. It is not yet noon, but he pours out two generous measures. He hands one to Ned, who drinks deeply, feeling the burn in his throat. He is not used to strong drinking any more. He drinks again, watching Will above the rim, throwing off his measure.

‘I hate the boy who shot her. I hate you, of course, Ned. That goes without saying.' He drops into a courtly bow. Ned twists his glass in his hands.

‘I hate myself the most, I think, Ned. There was I, playing at lawyers, while she was getting shot. While she was trying to protect the ones she loved. You too, of course. Not just Sam. Protect you from yourself.'

Ned closes his eyes. He has become proficient at blocking out the image of her puzzled face as she fell. The hand she put out to him, stained with blood. The film already forming on her eyes.

‘She is with Jesus now,' says Ned gently.

‘Damn your eyes, Ned. Damn you to Hell.'

‘Will, I…'

‘With Jesus. And you know that how, Ned? Hasn't half this blood been shed because you and the other lot were fighting over who gets to go to heaven? Jesus, Ned.' Will laughs; a strange, mirthless thing.

‘It's almost funny. If your father was right and you were wrong, there must be a long queue for judgement. The sheer numbers you lot have sent to be judged. And if you were right and he was wrong, my Henrietta could be in hell right now. Burning.'

‘No. No. She is elect.'

‘Funny how you bastards always think you know who is elect
and who is damned. You don't think He judges, but you do it all the time.'

Ned drains his drink. ‘I should go,' he says. It is unbearable to see Will like this. Gentle, clever Will.

They walk towards the door. ‘Tell me this, Ned,' says Will. ‘Do you feel guilt for her death?'

Ned pauses on the threshold. He hears someone screaming in the still air. His head feels tight, as if a headache is coming on. ‘I did not pull the trigger,' he says at last.

Will smiles, and its bleakness twists Ned's stomach.

‘Goodbye, Ned,' he says, slamming the door with a thud that echoes.

Ned puts his hand on his sword hilt as he walks away, running his thumb over its edges. He tries not to think about Henrietta. He tries not to think about Sam. He will leave London behind soon enough. He will feel the salt spray on his face and know that there is a sea between him and the politicking. The great earthquake of the king's death has levelled the land. He had thought that it would be clearer, what came next. He had thought that, with the king gone, a new Jerusalem would rise. It turns out that earthquakes leave behind rubble and sewage and frightened, bickering men.

He tries not to think about Henrietta. He tries not to remember her white, puzzled face as she fell.

It will be good to be in battle again, to draw this sword in earnest. It will be good to have orders that are clear, precise. Dig this trench. Set this watch. Use this password. It will be good to do His work. To hear God's pure voice calling in the darkness.