Daniel watched all of the earls in the line shake each other's hands, and faun all over the Earl of Essex. Under his breath he whispered, "Heaven help the reformer's good cause with that ass in charge of the army." As he watched, the line broke up and the few women in it took the arms of the Earls to accompany them to dining room. There was some confusion when the guest of honor grabbed Britta's arm instead of the countesses.
"Bloody fat old rake," Daniel hissed knowing that Assex would take every opportunity to grope her.
"That is better than I would have called him," came a voice from behind him. Daniel turned quickly. It was John Hampden.
"John, you've missed the reception line," Daniel told him as he grabbed him in a greeting well worthy of a brother-in-arms. The man was dressed every bit like a school master and not at all like the successful colonel of the Berkshire Greenjackets.
"On purpose. I was more likely to have pasted my fist into that fat mouth rather than shake his hand. Do you know what his reaction was when I reported that Rupert and his flying army had butchered some of the wounded that Essex had left behind at Kineton."
"Let me guess," Daniel replied. "That you didn't do enough to protect the wounded that he and the main army had abandoned."
"Worse. He took me to task for using grape shot against the king's noble gentlemen. He has removed my regiment from the duty of protecting his cannon, and he has issued orders that no cannon are to target the king's cavalry without his express permission. Unbelievable, yes."
"Totally believable. Wasn't it you that told me that Assex was balancing the need to defeat the king with the need to not anger the lords by killing their sons."
"Well put. It must have been me," Hampden replied with a chuckle, but the humour was short lived. "Well I suppose I should go and be seated. Has Pym arrived yet?"
"Yes, but he was carried in on a palanquin. I wish that man would replace his costly physicians with someone's grandmother. The women of my clan would have him on his feet and as right as rain within a week."
"This is London, remember, where sunlight comes out of the assholes of physicians, and the rain is grey with soot."
Daniel walked with him into the house, and took the opportunity to explain the situation with Lindsey. Hampden didn't ask to be convinced, but just agreed to help in any way he could. This gave Daniel the time to talk to him about Teesa's vision. Not that he could say it was a vision of a Seer, not to such a rigid Presbyterian.
"At Kineton I saw you fight of some skirmishers who were trying to silence you," Daniel began.
"Yes I remember it well. They almost succeeded. It was lucky for me that my third rank of musketeers had just finished loading."
"Do you remember anything peculiar about those skirmishers?"
"Not really. Why do you ask?"
After the battle, after I was safe home again, I had a dream about it. In my dream I remembered that the skirmishers were wearing costly steel armour painted with a black falcon. Was that just a dream, or was their armour actually like that?"
Hampden was shaking his head. "It all happened so fast. They broke off from the main charge and came at me without warning. Is it important?"
"For you ... vital."
Hampden stopped walking and leaned against a wall and closed his eyes in thought. "Sorry, I can't envision them, which is unusual for me because I have an almost perfect memory."
"That explains a lot," Daniel thought to himself, but did not speak it for fear of interrupting the man's thoughts. Hampden was scary smart.
"No, I can't see them. I do remember that despite being shot at that none of them lost their saddles, or dropped their sabres. Sabres. They were carrying sabres, and only steel armour could defeat a musket ball."
"My memory exactly," Daniel said. "I don't think they were skirmishers. Please try to remember how they looked. It's important."
"Perhaps it is just because you said so, but I think I do remember a black insignia ... and matching cloaks with fur collars."
"Wolf's fur?"
"It could have been. But ... but that would mean..."
"Exactly. That they were the prince's lifeguard. His chosen men from Germany. So the next question you must ask is why they were being risked by using them as lowly skirmishers?"
Hampden's eyes widened. "The prince wanted me dead. Me personally."
"If I were you John, I would stop leading from the front and stay far away from that bloody devil prince."
"Well I'll certainly ask my Greenjackets about the incident," Hampden replied, "and let them decide the rest. Thanks for the warning." They had almost reached the double doors to the dining hall, and they shook hands and separated before anyone inside the great hall could see them together.
"Where are your Greenjackets?" Daniel asked as an after thought.
"Garrisoning Uxbridge, which is west along the great road. Essex's way of punishing them for the sin of firing grape shot at Prince Rupert and the rest of the king's gentlemen
The rowdy noise spilling out from the hall came with a spicing of wool and body odour and tobacco smoke. Since there were no wives present, and since most of these men were mightily relieved to be once again safe in London, the fine meal that cook was preparing would be washed down with gushers of wine and hardly tasted. Once the food was cleared away, then the real drinking would begin. During his nearly ten years of being in the business of importing and selling fine liquor and fine wine it had always bothered him that most of the costly stuff was carelessly swilled down rather than savoured.
He sighed and went to find the two sergeants of the guard. Now that all of the noble politicians had arrived and were safely inside it was time to plan for their leaving in safety. He grabbed the first sergeant he came to and asked, "Does the local Captain of the curfew watch owe you any favours?"
"Aye, that he does. Many's the cold night when he's warmed hisself with my welcome. What would you be wanting of him."
"We will soon be facing the problem of getting a mob of drunken nobles safely back to their homes. I'd like to hear from the watch about how they would prefer it to happen."
"I'll go and fetch him before he starts his rounds, shall I. Should I mention to him that it would be safer to move these nobs after the curfew has cleared the streets?"
The sergeant had been reading his mind. "Nay, let him come up with that idea for himself. The bite he will charge us will be less if it is his idea." Daniel patted the man on the shoulder. "Good man." The sergeants bulbous nose was hidden by a smile, and he turned and grabbed a lackey to go with him to the watch house.
The other sergeant was still at the cloak room organizing a special guard for the large fortune in fur lined cloaks, crafted pistols, and dress swords. Daniel jested with the guards, "Believe it or not, it will be harder to give them back to them than it was to take them away. They'll be as drunk as a..."
"Lord," an old soldier interrupted with a chortle.
"... and beyond knowing which was theirs." Daniel finished. Of the sergeant he asked, '"Did the countess give you any special orders concerning the safety of the serving women."
"Nay, I just assumed they would be carted off back to the Westminster house as soon as the siding was done."
"Well this party is going to last until well after the curfew, so they'll have to sleep here."
"Well there's beds, but no linens. We moved the household to Westminster last week, cause you can't keep this draughty old palace warm."
"Is there a place where we can lock them up and guard them?" Daniel asked.
"Lock up yer daughter," the old soldier began singing the popular alehouse song. "The cocks be swollen with ale and they'll be pokin' where they oughtna."
"The servants quarters on the kitchen level. It's a wing unto itself so the connecting door is stout and can be barred," the sergeant replied.
"Perfect. Tell your men that the first time they see one of the guests bending a girl over, they are to round up all the women and lock them in that wing."
"What about the girls that are willing to bend over to pick up a good coin?" asked the sergeant.
"Sally was a strumpet and she earned her purse at night," the old soldier continued. "I've forgotten the next bit." Some other guards sang the next line out in sour harmony.
"Shut it," the sergeant told them, and they did.
"They'll all thank you for locking them up, eventually." Daniel told all of them. "Many of these nobs have been living in army camps for months. God only knows what worms and vermin and pox they are carrying home to their wives." It was important that this news travel through the ranks of the guards so they would not be teased out of locking the pretty ones up.
"Should we round up the hostesses too?" the old soldier asked, suddenly more serious.
"Especially the hostesses," Daniel replied. "All we need is for one nob woman to be raped by a nob drunk, and the Reform Party will be split asunder. Is there somewhere more fitting to lock them up?"
The sergeant thought for a while, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Any of the upstairs rooms, but all of them are cold and unfurnished. They won't thank us. I suppose the countess's suite would be best." He ordered two of his men to go and lay lusty fires in both havens to warm them up and to stay with those fires to make sure they didn't burn the house down.
"I'll go tell Cook," Daniel said and made his way towards the back staircase.
When this house was built the back staircase really should have been made wider. It was the main route between the huge kitchen below, and the dining hall that took up most of what must have been the original house before the newer wings were added. The staircase was now packed with women carrying heavy steaming dishes up, and empty ones down. By the looks of the women going down, it would not be long before all of these women would be locked up. The skirts and bodices of the younger women were askew and stray wisps of hair were escaping their bonnets.
He overheard the one in front of him in the down queue say, "Don't you dare, not for just a shilling. As they down more cups, the price is sure to go up. Why risk your position for just a shilling?"
"Why risk the French pox for just a shilling, more like it." Daniel hissed into her ear. "Or don't you believe what they say about the women that travel with the army." The lass miss-stepped and he grabbed her from behind to steady her. If she had fallen, she would have taken out those carrying the fourth course up the stairs.
He found the cook supervising the garnishing of the fifth course, the venison. She was a whirlwind in her kitchen, but because of that everything was orderly and in control. "Oh dearie me," she was fretting, as any artist would fret when showing her work off. "It's not proper to serve just eight courses. It should be twelve. And this venison has not been aged long enough to remove its gaminess."
Daniel had come up behind the big woman and now he whispered in her ear, "They'll all smack their lips and give you a toast, love. They've been eating day old horse for months."
"Danny, I've not the time for your flirting," she gave him a buss on the cheek without touching him with her greasy hands, "but thank you. If you want something to eat, then help yourself from the platters coming back down."
"Later love. I've just come to tell you that is already getting pretty wild in the hall so I have given orders to lock up the women as soon as any of your girls are accosted."
"Their safety is my charge," she said with a stubborn look. She glanced over at the young ones trying to tuck themselves back together before taking another platter up. "Yes perhaps it's for the best. You don't mean myself and my senior women of course. There will still be the food to be put away else the rats will be into it."
"You especially, love. Which of these lords wouldn't leap at the chance to abduct the most talented cook in the kingdom?"
"Oh go on with you. I'll pass the word to my girls. Where are they to go?"
"The servant's quarters. There's a fire being laid there now. If you see the countess before I do, let her know." The cook was already back to work displaying her venison and she waved a greasy hand to him without looking. Daniel decided it would be faster to go out the back door and around outside than joining the up queue on the stairs, but first he went to check the heft of the door to the servant's wing.
"Seem's stout enough," he said to the guardsman who was blowing on some tinder in the fireplace.
The man coughed back an "Aye".
"When the women begin arriving you are to keep them here. Once they are in, they do not leave. None of them, no matter what you are offered to let them pass. Understood?" Again a cough. "And if the nobs come looking for them, you are to shut this door in their face and bar it ... before there is any bullying. Understood?" Another cough. "Open the damper man else you'll have me coughing too."
One of the most recent additions to this house was a small raised terrace so that folk could step out of the funk of the great hall and take the fresh air. Since that meant there was a door, most of the men on the terrace were guards. As he came up the outside steps to reach them, they nudged their caps with their forefingers in a polite salute due any guest. "Oh it's you sir," one said. "all is secure here, sir."
Daniel told them that if any women used the terrace door to flee any man, that they were to be protected and taken to the kitchen, but without the use of force against the men. They replied that the sergeant had already given them the order, so he didn't explain it further. "Danny, is that you?" came a voice from the far railing where two men were leaning out over the garden below. The voice was Oliver's.
"Ollie, so they didn't seat you after all," he said as he walked closer.
"Britta arranged a seat beside John here, with the excuse that he could use my voice to call out his thoughts above the general noise."
The other man turned around. It was John Pym, the leader of the Reform Party, and he was wiping some spittle from his lips. "Still not keeping your food down, John?" Daniel asked. "Do you remember the thin lass, Teesa?"
"Warwick's huntress? Not a lass who is easy to forget. She was grace in motion, in the saddle or out."
"She sent some stomach tincture with me to give you. A few drops, thrice daily, she says. It's made from a type of wormwood that doesn't give you nightmares like absinthe does. Just as bitter though, so best taken in ale."
"But my physician's don't believe in what they call witches remedies," Pym replied.
"Teesa is no witch," Daniel said hurriedly. "She is skilled at husbandry, which means she knows what works and what doesn't. The tincture works. She dosed me with it when I came back from the wars. Set me right within a day, but she says I have to keep taking it for ten to be sure."
"Have it sent to my house, ugh, in the early morning before my physician arrives to plague me."
"Danny," Oliver said, "we've won the delay in Willoughby's release. Even Essex now agrees, and that despite the old Earl having been his lifelong friend."
"What won it for us. Vengeance for the sacking and looting of the country houses of the party members, like Broughton Castle?"
"It was so argued, but not successfully," Oliver replied. "No, Hampden won it for us by saying nothing until just before the decision was to be made. He spoke last and directly to Essex. Your grace, he says. If you are ever captured, we will need an earl in our keeping with which to bargain your release. At the moment we have none other than Willoughby. Without him at the ready, the delay may cost you your neck."
Daniel hooted with laughter, and even Pym joined in the mirth at Hampden's foxiness. "What did Essex say in answer to that."
"That the Earl of Lindsey had been one of his closest friends and he will string up the man who shot him down," Cromwell said this as a warning for Daniel to keep the identity of Lindsey's killer to himself. "And then he went on to say that he owes it to the father and the family to keep the son as safe as possible during these troubled times. That Willoughby will be kept healthy and safe while he is our guest until perhaps next summer."
"Six months!" Daniel exclaimed and then lowered his voice. "That will have the villages of the fens toasting the general ... and with ale made from barley grown in the old earl's fields." He decided to tarry and talk with old Pym because there was no better source of 'true' news than the man who scripted many of the columns in the local news sheets that doled out the parliament's version of the news to Londoners.
"The king has refused to speak with some of the commissioners we sent to him. They were sent only to discuss a temporary ceasefire while a long term resolution is decided," Pym told them. "It is all a ploy to buy him more time to plan his attack on London. We already know that he is not coming down the Great Northern Road, but the Great West Road. His army have moved from Oxford to Reading, and Prince Rupert's flying squads are worrying Windsor."
"Windsor, well that makes sense," Oliver said. "That grand old fortress not only controls the flow of barges up and down the Thames, and carts along the Western highways, but within it's walls there is a comfortable palace. We must keep Windsor from him at all costs."
"I have sent that same message this morning to Colonel Venn who commands the garrison on our behalf. I also told him to keep his men on the walls and not to sally out to engage Prince Rupert. Meanwhile the king has suggested that Windsor castle would the perfect place to hold peace negotiations and that he should be allowed residence."
"If he goes to ground in Windsor we will never get him out again," Daniel grumbled. "Rupert could sally forth from there and cut us off from the southwest, and knowing him he will turn the Thames red with the blood of innocents." He then told Pym about Rupert’s continual use of the German tactic of Schrecken ... terror.
"No wonder my good friend John has written me a warning letter specifically about him." Pym meant John Hampden. "I fear that once the prince has been denied Windsor that the towns around Windsor will feel his wrath. Certainly the towns that lie between our garrisons at Windsor and at Kingston-upon-Thames. Towns near Staines. Hopefully the Kingston garrison will protect them. We have over 3,000 men there."
"That devil prince was born to be hung," Daniel said, "and the sooner the better. So what are you going to do about the Great West Road? You can't let Charlie's army move along it. That will hand him all of the towns to the west of London."
"Denzil Holles and Lord Brooke have garrisoned their London bands at Brentford. That is the town where the road meets the big northern bend in the Thames." By Lord Brooke, Pym meant Robert Greville, one of his partners in the Providence Company.
"I can't fault the decision to send those two together," Daniel said. "They hate bloody Charlie and want him brought down no matter what it takes. I wish Assex shared their conviction. I fear that Assex's meekness towards Charlie has just cost this kingdom three thousand of its young men, and for nothing. Nay, for less than nothing, for now the king's demon is loose in the Thames Valley and his army is but a day away on the main highway."
"Assex ... how droll. Yes, I have been sent many complaints about Essex's timidity, but then I have also been sent the same complaint about Oliver here, and about John Hampden."
Daniel spoke over Oliver's request for the name of his detractor to ask, "Who could possible say that Hampden was timid?"
"Essex himself," Pym replied, while ignoring Oliver's question. "He says that rather than fight Prince Rupert fairly with musket and pike, he besmirched our reputation firing grape into Rupert's cavalry."
"It was I who ordered the cannons at Kineton loaded with grape and aimed at the cavalry," Daniel corrected. "My god man, they were butchering the wounded."
"More of this Schrecken tactic?" Pym confirmed. "You will forgive me for forbidding mention of this terror tactic in London's broadsheets. Not by the kings supporters and not by us. I, we, would appreciate it if it stayed that way. The true effect of an act of terror depends upon it being spoken about, whether that effect be a quick surrender or a vow to fight to the death."
Pym was interrupted by someone opening the terrace door to the dining hall, and letting some of the raucous noise escape. The door closed again and the noise was replaced by a sob. Two of the guards near the door called out for Daniel. As he approached he saw Britta standing there with the guards while she tried to straighten her bodice so it would again hide both of her nipples. The guards were staring at the one breast freed from its holster until Daniel hissed at them to about face. In two more strides he was beside her and he whispered. "Continue to straighten yourself. It's just me, Danny." This because her eyes would still be night blind from the lights of the hall. "What has happened?"
Britta sniffed up a tear and gave up on her gown. It was ruined. "The men inside are all hands. They are worse than Cambridge students at The George after passing an exam. Greasy hands. Look what they've done to my best gown. Venison fat will never come out of the silk, and look at where the stains are ... all over my bum. And they've ripped the seam of my new French bodice. I can't go back inside looking like this."
"Who did it?"
"As for the hand prints on my bum, who knows. The bodice, that was done by that foul mouthed beast Essex."
Pym had recognized the young beauty from other dinners at this fine house and had stumbled over in hopes of gaining one of her warming smiles. "I've never known Essex to use bad language to a lady," he said softly.
"Not his words, his breath," she sobbed. "And him trying to put his tongue in my mouth. Revolting. When I pulled away he did this," she let one side of the bodice fall down again. Pym couldn't quite convince himself not to stare. It was the most perfect of breasts, high and firm and bowl shaped rather than jug shaped.
That lovely breast was nothing that Daniel hadn't seen many times before, so instead of staring he ordered two of the guards to spread the word to 'calmly' lock up the daughters. One of them sprinted towards the front door, and the other sprinted for the kitchen. "Calmly," he called after them. "So it is not noticed until all of the women are safe behind locked doors."
While Daniel was barking orders, Britta pushed in closer to the old man, Pym in hopes of staying warm. Her other choice was Oliver, but she had always found him a bit of a cold fish. Pym was the same. He had no warmth, no energy, no luster to his being. "Mr. Pym, are you still unwell? Why haven't your physicians made you healthy yet?"
"I sometimes think it is because I pay them too well while I am sickly," Pym attempted levity. It was embarrassing for him to have the beauteous young woman see him at his worst. "Even mere acquaintances are offering me home remedies. Warwick's huntress for instance. You must know her."
"You mean Teesa. She is my sister. Are you telling me that Teesa has held your hand and run her warming hand over you?"
"Why yes. It seemed to take the gnawing away, but that is likely because the lass is most distracting. So are you my dear."
"She laid hands on you and then she sent you some medicine?"
"Why yes, a tincture of wormwood, or at least that is what Daniel told me."
"You old silly. If my sister knows your pain and has sent you a tincture, then hurry home and take some."
"Do you think it will work?" Pym asked.
"Well if it doesn't you can always ask her for your coin back," she teased him. "It seems to me that you should pay physicians for keeping you well, and stop paying them when you fall ill. Isn't that what you politicians call a free market?"
"Britta, love," Daniel interrupted as he walked nearer. "Could you be a dear and herd all of the women still in the dining hall out towards the back staircase. The guard will meet them there to escort them to rooms with stout doors."
"Servers and hostesses?" she confirmed, and when he nodded she gave a thought to the unusual request, but on second thought it all made good sense. "Can I tell the guard to shoot Essex if he tries to stop me from leaving?"
"Nooo. " called Oliver and stepped forward waving his hands. The man never could take a jest.
Not wanting to double the embarrassment by telling the member from Cambridge that he had missed yet another jest, Daniel said, "Not this time love. Maybe next time." Pym got it however, and his laughter turned into a cough, and then a worse cough.
"Ollie, I think our Mr. Pym has said all he will tonight. There is a trap outside waiting to take him home. Could you go with him see to his comfort?"
"But Pym lives across town, while I live on the other side of Britta's gate. I will have to go all the way there and then all the way back."
"Well then go inside and fetch Hampden," Daniel told him. "He won't say no." Sometimes Oliver could be the most uncharitable of men. Didn't everyone measure the worth of charity by how much they really didn't want to give it. Meanwhile Britta had her breasts cupped again, and was pulling at some silk to fluff it up to cove the tear. She did a slight curtsey to John Pym and then twirled on a heel and went back inside.
Moments later, Britta was replace by Countess Susannah on the terrace. "Captain, captain," she called softly out into the dark. "Are you still there?"
"To your right love," Daniel replied. "Wait a moment until your eyes adjust."
"Never mind my eyes, come closer and speak with me before I freeze to death. This gown of mine is made of gathered gossamer, so the whole thing could be stuffed into a pint cup. What is all this about you locking up my women."
"Only the daughters, love. Any woman who has never been a daughter can stay in the hall with them randy drunks."
"Hmm, I see. Did Cook agree to this."
"It was her idea, mam. She says she has enough battle axes like her to put all the food away, so there is no need to risk the honor of the youngn's."
"Well that is fine for the rest, but I refuse to be locked up in my own house." It was a telling statement for the countess for she was older than the Cook, but didn't look it.
"Then find a warm cloak, love, and meet me in at the front door. We'll do the rounds together." He knew she would agree. She had the sweets for him. The countess went back inside with Oliver, while Daniel and one of the guards formed a carry chair by holding each other's hands, and with one of his arms over each of their necks, they carried Pym around the house to the front gate to find his trap driver. By the time they took a few rests along the way, they got to the front gate to find not only the countess waiting for them, but also Oliver and Hampden, and the captain of the Holborn night watch."
"Daniel, good news," Susannah called to him. "The captain of the watch says that our guests can start out to their homes after the curfew and the watch will keep an eye out to their safety. Isn't that wonderful of him?"
Daniel smiled, and stretched out to shake the captain's hand. "Good plan," he told him. "I wish I had thought of it. Be warned that by the time the carriages leave this house they will be filled with drunks. Probably fall down drunk, for many of them are just back from the wars and they will be trying to forget what horrors they have seen on the battlefield."
Hampden was having two of the gate keepers load Pym into his carriage. Daniel and Susannah escorted the captain out the gate and then went to stand beside Oliver, who by that time was having a heated discussion with Hampden.
"That sounds like a self serving excuse to me," Oliver was saying.
"Excuse for what?" Daniel asked as he pulled the countess into his arms to help keep her warm, or rather, to share the wool cloak she was now wearing. She did not resist the embrace despite all the onlookers.
"Oliver wrote me a very critical letter about how our cavalry was not up to the task of taking on Prince Rupert and his well mounted men of quality. That our horse ran away like cowards rather than fight. I was just telling him of Colonel Balfour's response to the criticism. How he ordered our irregular cavalry to turn and run, rather than fight, in order to lead the prince's flying army away from our infantry lines, and that once the prince was off the field, then he led a charge of our regular cavalry which broke the king's infantry line and spiked his cannons."
"As I say, a bare faced lie to cover up rank cowardice," Oliver almost spat the words.
"Be careful who you slander, Ollie," Daniel told him. "Balfour is the closest thing that Essex has to Field Marshal Alex Leslie of the Scottish army. Were it my decision to make, he would be running the army instead of Essex."
"Lies to cover up," Oliver repeated.
"Not a bit of it," Daniel replied. "I was there when he told the irregulars to lead the flying army away from our lines, and keep them away, and I was there when he broke through the king's line and spiked the cannons. And as for your well mounted men of quality, all they did in that battle was to slaughter unarmed men and the wounded."
"So you disagree with Oliver?" Hampden asked. "You would not recruit a cavalry force of gentlemen to match the prince's?"
"If you want to beat Charlie then you must first beat the prince. What I learned about gentlemen cavalryers fighting in the Netherlands was to never play by their rules. Instead force them to play by yours. With cavalryers that means taking their horses away from them and thereby rob them of their ability to attack and retreat faster than the infantry."
"You mean we need more field guns and muskets," Hampden confirmed.
"Nay, for those are only of use in battle lines or in defense. They cannot run a flying squad down and force them off their horses. You have the men and the horses you need, but what they need is more and better pistols. If it were my decision, I would have the gunsmiths build double barreled pistols and give each of our skirmishers three or four of them, so they can do some real damage to Rupert's vultures before they must retreat to reload."
"Such pistols would be too expensive," Oliver argued.
"Cheaper than equipping regular cavalry," Daniel told them, "and quicker than recruiting and training snotty nosed gents who will change sides the moment the king offers them a knighthood." He had been resisting Susannah's efforts to tug him away from the arguement, but then he thought about the ear full that Britta would give him once she heard what he had just said, so he allowed himself to be led away.
* * * * *
Hours and hours later, Daniel walked a sleepy Britta and an even sleepier Oliver back across the field to Britta's back gate. "Oh, I almost forgot," Daniel said as he reached into his pocket for Oliver’s small wheel lock pistol. "I was supposed to return this to you. I would have returned it earlier but it slipped my mind."
Oliver took the pistol but made no comment. Both of them knew that any pistol was better held in Daniel's hand than in his.
"By the way," Daniel told him, "Stop using a flint in the dog. With a wheel-lock you should be using fool's gold. It sparks fuller and easier."
"But it wears down so quickly," Oliver said trying to justify his use of flint.
"If you ever have call to use that baby pistol, it will be a life and death situation. You will not have time to quibble about the cost of a morsel of fool's gold."
"Point taken," Oliver replied. He was just glad to own a pistol so small, small enough to fit in a coat pocket. He was also glad that Britta hadn't demanded to be carried back over the long grass for he barely had the energy to walk.
Britta's gown was ruined anyway so the wet grass was no longer an issue for her. She trudged along with the two men, and cursed her silly shoes, but under her breath. Ollie was such a prude. She didn't remember these grounds being so wide. She stopped to straighten her gown and happened to look up. "Oh, oh, oh," she called to the two men who were now ahead of her, and then she danced a spin and a leap to catch up to them.
"Look at the sky, Danny, look at the sky," She called out. Despite her exhaustion she began to merrily dance along sideways so she could look up to the north. "It's the Norse lights." The whole of the northern horizon was oozing and swaying with a misty ghostly green light. "That means another week of clear cold weather."
Oliver stopped his trudging and looked up to see. He had been acquainted with the Wellenhay clan for five or six years, and it always humbled him at how they took such joy in the God made things all around them. He smiled at the wondrous lights despite himself. The lights and the dancer. The lights and the dancer made him forget how dog tired he was, and in no time they were at her private gate. A lad came down from the house and opened it for them. He was perhaps fourteen and he had a face that Oliver had seen before, but not on this lad."
"Robert Rich the Third may I introduce Oliver Cromwell, my neighbour," she said quite formally. "He has just returned from the wars. And you mind your manners for he is Bridget's father."
"We've met before," the lad said as he ignored the old man and took his lady love's hand and led her towards the house.
"Not yet," she told him. "Look up there." She pointed up to the northern sky above the wall and in reaching up her costly formal cloak fell open.
The lad did not look up, but down her cleavage and then at her ripped bodice. "Who did that?" he asked, plucking at the soft fabric against her breast. "Tell me who dared to lay a hand on your breast and I will slay him for you."
"Can't that wait until tomorrow," Britta asked him sweetly. "For now what my breast needs is to be kissed better." She gathered him into her arms and wrapped her cloak around them both and forced him to look up.
Oliver moaned at the thought of kissing her breast, but said nothing. Oh to be young again. Oh to be sexually teased by someone so young again.
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The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014