Walking towards the other door took him away from
the kitchen garden and towards a flower garden brimming with
blooming poppies. The other door was open and he walked into a
large room, one of the women's rooms. He could tell that not just
because there were a dozen women in the large room and no men, but
because displayed everywhere in the room was a collection of costly
clutter. On every surface there were lace doilies on which stood
vases and statues. Every flat surface was crowded with knick-knacks
and china.
"There is my guardian now,” a woman's voice announced his entry into the room. Daniel blinked twice to accustom his eyes to the inside light after being out in the sunshine. Britta was in the far corner and around her were sat three women her own age as if she were holding court. He pulled his elbows in so he wouldn't send any of the costly clutter crashing to the floor as he moved about, and then walked towards her. There was another group of women, an older group, on the other side of the room. A woman from that group called his name.
"Daniel, come and meet your hostess, Countess Isabella,” the Countess Susannah called to him.
Susannah was the Earl of Warwick's wife, and had been sweet to him in the past. The countess would be the Earl of Holland's wife. The two earls were brothers so what did that make the two wives? Countesses-in-law? Sisters-in-law-in-law? Perhaps sisters-out-law? Daniel stiffened his back and suddenly felt very shabby. The two matrons were wearing a fortune in jewels and brocade silk and were waiting for him to be gallant.
"Sorry, love, for being a bit rough about the edges,” he said as he bowed to Isabella and kissed her offered glove. "I've been in the saddle for two days returning from the battles in Dorset. Ugh. Britta brought me along, you know, to report to John Pym."
Isabella put two fingers under his chin and lifted his face up so that she could see it. He was a very comely man. No wonder Susannah put up with his bumpkin ways. And then she stared into his eyes and gasped despite herself. Eyes to lose your heart into. Eyes to lose yourself into. Eyes to lose your self respect into. Dangerous eyes to any woman. "And how do the battles go?"
He stood to his full height but kept her eyes with his, and kept her hand in his. "The casualties in the skirmishes are light, thankfully, but the rule of law in the countryside is taking a beating. The only safe place in the kingdom seems to be London. I thank you for brightening the world with your silks, for the women in the country are now all in black."
"Have so many men been lost?" Susannah asked, in shock. The news sheets never mentioned any bad news unless it was good for parliament.
"Not a loss of life but a loss of livelihood, a loss of men's company, a loss of animals, a loss of winter stores. When the women are doing the work of the men, including the coming harvest, then they do not wear flights of silk." What had begun as a complement had been clouded by the brutal truth. This was not what these women wanted to hear.
"See, I told you,” Susannah told Isabella. "When we go out in public from now on we must dress in black. Gowns like these are fine for this room, in this company, but nowhere else. Not now. Not until there is peace again."
"That is like telling the poppies not to bloom,” Daniel told her. "What a dull world it would be if the flowers didn't bloom and the birds didn't wear their mating colors."
"Just until there is peace again." Isabella said. Was she bargaining? "So by next spring we will be colorful again. Yes, I agree. We can distinguish ourselves from Henrietta's court by being one with the women of the counties. If they must be drab, then so must we. If they are dressed for mourning, then so must we."
"I hope it doesn't come to that,” Daniel said softly. "My last mission was to tell a mother that she no longer had a son. I would rather charge the cannons. Please, keep wearing your silks. Forgive me for speaking."
"How can I chastise you for speaking the simple truth. No, my mind is made up,” Susannah told him. "Until there is peace all of my women will dress for mourning."
There was a swish of silks behind him and Britta whispered into his ear. "Now look what you've done. Twit. What fun will my life be without my clothes."
A naughty jest crossed his mind but he dismissed it as unworthy to put into words. Not in this company.
"If these two women dress in black, then within a week every woman in London will be in black,” Britta continued.
Isabella must have heard her, because she pointed out, "Only in public my dear."
"But that is when looking stunning is the most fun,” Britta blurted out. There were eleven other women in the room and they all stared daggers at her. She was used to such looks for even if she were dressed as a humble milk maid she would still outshine these women in their costly silk brocades.
To break the silence, Daniel pointed to one of the two large paintings hanging on the wall. "Is that you countess?"
Isabella blushed and then stepped closer to the handsome captain and turned so she could view it with him. "That was my wedding present from Henry, that and paying off my families considerable debts. It is by Mr. Larkin. He captured the colors of my gown exactly. I can't ever remember being that thin, but of course, that was before I bore ten children."
"You still have the same mischief in your smile,” Daniel told her softly, truthfully.
"The other painting is of Henry done by Mr. Mijtens about two years ago. I don't like it. It makes him look effeminate. He did one of me too, but I prefer Mr. Larkin's. Come with me and I will show you the other." Isabella hooked her arm into his and tugged him slightly towards one of the doors. "You stay here Susannah. I shan't be long."
Inwardly Daniel groaned, for he knew that this woman, this mother of ten, was using the painting as an excuse to get him alone. Was this to become an attempt at seduction. She was perhaps forty, but she looked sixty. Bearing ten children would do that to a woman. What choice did he have? None, so he allowed himself to be maneuvered along the hallways, up some stairs, and through a double door into what must have been the nursery.
While she was making a point of closing and locking the door, he stared through the windows at the view across the village of Kensington, and a large farm, and the manor house of the farm.
She saw him looking out of the window rather than at her portrait hung on the wall, and told him, "That is Kensington Manor. Every week I suggest to my husband that parliament should sequester it to be used for committee meetings instead of my house. Unfortunately it is owned by the Finch family, who are wealthy London lawyers, and they keep blocking any such action with legal arguments."
"I don't like this portrait of you,” Daniel told her. "Mr. Mijtens has done the same thing that he did with your husband. The scene, the clothing, and the body could be of anyone anywhere, and then he has simply painted a likeness of your face. And not even a good likeness at that."
"I asked him to make me look younger,” she admitted.
"Why, when your face has such character, the character of a mother of ten."
"Nine. I lost my first,” she told him as she came closer and pressed against him. He backed up, but she kept moving with him until she had him pressed up against a chest of drawers. "Do you really think my face has character?" Her hands were exploring the muscles of his arms and shoulders. "You are so strong,” she sighed.
He stepped away clumsily and she did not follow him but said, "I brought you here to beg you to keep Britta away from my husband and my sons."
"Why? Is there a problem?"
"There could be. There could easily be. So easily."
"Then that is between you and Britta,” Daniel pointed out. "Have you spoken to her about it?"
"Of course not, but I am on the edge of banning her from my house. If she weren't such a pleasant distraction for everyone in these serious times, I would have already."
"Have you spoken to Susannah about her?"
"We are not that close,” meaning there were bitter feelings between them.
"Susannah had the same problem. She decided to take the high road and be pleasant to Britta, but in return she extracted a promise."
"Which was?"
"That she would not bed any of her menfolk without first getting her permission." Daniel watched the words soften the woman's look. Why did women find it so hard to deal directly with problems?
"And Britta has kept her word?"
"There are many benefits to being one of Susannah’s inner circle. Of course she has kept her word."
A smile came to Isabella's face, and then a grin. "I've been a fool. For weeks I have carried this worry about with me, and for what?" She moved closer to him and again reached out to touch him..
"Sorry, love. I just can't,” he told her and backed away again. "Please don't tempt me for I am happily married." It was exactly the right thing to say because she actually blushed. "I think perhaps we have been alone in this room a tad too long. I came to your house seeking information about what is happening in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. My village straddles the border near to Ely."
"Would you like me to help you with that?" she asked while slipping her arm through his and leading him towards the door. "The new Earl of Manchester is having a meeting about exactly that. In the summer room. I will take you there."
Arm in arm they walked back along the long corridor and down the main staircase to the ground floor. She stopped in front of a heavy closed door with a doorman. The man did not question the Lady of the House's right to enter, and opened the door for her, and then she ushered Daniel into the room, gave a half wave to the men inside, and then turned and left the room. The door closed behind him. There were eight men sitting around a table and they all looked expectantly at him. Edward Montagu, the new Earl of Manchester nodded to him and said, "Daniel, I don't remember asking you to this meeting."
"The Countess Isabella thought I might be of use to you." It wasn't quite a lie.
Montagu looked around the table. "Well we wouldn't want to upset our hostess. Does anyone have any objections? Daniel is Warwick's man so I have no objections."
Montagu was Warwick's son-in-law and the very man who Daniel had rescued from the king's clutches at the House of Lords last year. No one spoke. Most of the men just shrugged as if they were eager to get back to the business at hand. Daniel took a seat and Montagu quickly ran through the names of the other men for him, and then went back to the discussion he had interrupted.
"So are we agreed,” Montagu said, "to allow the association of the militias of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk as if they were regiments of one army, the Eastern Army, under one General. What about Hertfordshire?"
"I think it very likely that we will join,” John Wittewronge replied. He commanded Saint Alban's trained bands. "Wouldn't that get up William Seymour's nose." Seymour was the king's General Hertford now in Sherborne.
"Excellent. That would secure London's food supplies, and more important, their ale supplies. What about Cambridgeshire?"
"Except for the colleges of Cambridge and the sheriff and some of the manors to the west, the rest of the county supports us,” Oliver Cromwell replied. "I think you can count on us. That would give us an East Anglian army. Probably the first since the Normans invaded."
"Good point,” Montagu said. "Better still that gives us control of all of the ports closest to the Netherlands." This was no surprise to anyone. East Anglia and the Netherlands Republics had always been close in trade and culture, religion and politics. "How about Huntingdonshire?"
"They are all sitting on the fence,” replied Valentine Walton, Oliver's brother-in-law. "The Earl is with us, but he is a silly old man and it is his son who runs the estates. Oliver's cousin Henry is sheriff and he is for the king. Though we took the arsenal in Cambridge, Henry kept it from us in Huntingdon. As I said, they are all sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens in Lincolnshire."
Everyone seemed to be satisfied with the answer, but not Daniel. "That cannot be so. Everyone living in the fens, any fens, wants a change and that means siding with Parliament."
Montagu was about to scold him, for he had no voice in this meeting, but Valentine spoke first. "I was speaking of the landed gentry, not the cottagers. We have no trouble raising infantry, but what we need is cavalry."
"The Netherlands republics have kept empires at bay with their infantry for seventy years,” Daniel pointed out. "They had no choice because the landed gentry tends to side with emperors and kings. in hopes of being knighted or elevated to the peerage. Even if you formed a cavalry from the sons of landlords, could you ever trust them?" He noticed that Oliver was trying to catch his attention by running a finger across his neck, so he stopped speaking and looked around at the effects of his words. Most of the men at the table were wealthy landlords. "My apologies gentlemen. No personal insults were intended. I was speaking from my experiences in Holland."
"It is a good lesson for all of us,” Wittewronge pointed out. "My family fled Flanders when our early attempts of forming a republic were crushed by our own lords. Our democratic leanings frightened them into supporting the empire. England's and Scotland's Parliaments are not rebelling against the position of king, but the choice of king."
He was right of course, and everyone agreed with him, whether they were republicans or not. Montagu brought the meeting back in focus by asking, "Valentine, what can we do to help you in Huntingdon?"
"Oliver is already helping me there, but something must be done about Lincolnshire. Which ever side of the fence Lincolnshire hops down on, Huntingdon will hop the same way. Unfortunately the Bertie-Willoughby families control Lincolnshire."
"Perhaps we should have the report from Lincolnshire,” Montagu interrupted and looked towards William Ellis, the MP from Boston.
"As Valentine said, since Robert Bertie is not only the Earl of Lindsey and the Lord Lieutenant or Lincolnshire, and the king's Commissioner of Arrays of Lincolnshire, and worse still is the king's captain-general, his family poses a formidable problem. Having me, the MP from Boston, as the representative of all Lincolnshire on this committee says as much for I can only speak for the Fenlands of the south.
There has been some progress. When Lindsey came to wreak the king's vengeance on us for not handing over Prince Rupert's men and treasure that Daniel" he nodded to the man "forced ashore at Skegness, we were most pleased by the turnout from the villages of men willing to hold Boston against him. A thousand men rallied to help us in less than six hours."
"What's that you say?" Daniel asked as he sat forward.
"Oh, I'm sorry,” Ellis said. "I thought you knew."
"I've just come from the battles in Dorset. I'm on my way back north to the Fens, to my village of Wellenhay. I've heard nothing of this."
"There is much to tell, but you can best hear that in your own village. I'll tell you the brief version. Lindsey came to Boston with three hundred horse to punish us for affronting the king and Prince Rupert. Captain Syler rallied the two hundred men of the Boston Band and blocked and held the streets for hours until men poured in from the villages to help him. Lindsey withdrew from Boston but then began to ravage the villages all around.
It would have gone very badly for us except that one of your Wellenhay ships was at Fishtoft and they sailed to Lynn with our request for help. The Wellenhay ships and others from Lynn carried the Norfolk Bands across the Wash. Men, muskets, pistols, even some heavy ordnance. Those ships of yours are so fast that they ran a ferry service between Fishtoft and Lynn filling the Boston area with armed infantry. Eventually Lindsey was so out manned and out gunned that he withdrew."
Ellis turned away from Daniel and told the rest of the men, "So you see, southern Lincolnshire was already beholding to an Eastern association of militias even as you were planning one. Those fast ships of the Wash should be put on retainer. With them we can deploy the militia quickly up and down the coast and into all of the waterways. It was that ability that forced Lindsey to withdraw, for our men could reach places where his cavalry would bog down."
"Which villages?" Daniel asked. "You said that Lindsey's forces ravaged the villages. Which villages?"
"The ones that fought hardest against his efforts to drain the fens,” Ellis replied. "There were many small places. He was pressing horses and young men into the king's service. Dragging them away, and promising no violence to a village if they went willingly. Some roofs were burned. There were some beatings, and a few killings, and some rape of course. We were so very fortunate for if not for your ships it could have been so much worse."
"Fishtoft and Freiston?" Daniel asked.
"I'm afraid they were the first, for Lindsey was trying to stop ships from using the Haven waterway for unloading the men from Lynn." Ellis turned to Montagu and told him, "The good news is that the villages are so angry with Lindsey that the next time we need to call up the men of the area, four thousand would rally, not just a thousand. We need to build up the Boston arsenal. Currently it can supply four hundred militia, but we may need to supply thousands."
"Please excuse me,” Daniel told them as he rose from his chair. His face was white and he felt dizzy. "I've been away from my village for too long. I must get back there as soon as possible." He stumbled out of the room and raced towards the privies at the end of the corridor. He felt sick to his stomach. The privies were full so he stumbled out into the garden. Fresh air was all he really needed, but of course this was London so he had to make do with smoky air. He wondered which was worse, the coal smoke outside or the tobacco smoke in the committee rooms.
By using the same garden door beyond the poppy bed he was able to find Britta again, and he rushed to her side and spun her away from some other women and told her the bad news about Freiston from the committee meeting. Her immediate reaction was to ask him about Wellenhay. When he admitted that he hadn't asked, she sniffed at him as if he were a fool and then stormed out of the room and down the hallway. Daniel had to trot to catch up with her.
Montagu's meeting was just breaking up and the men from it were wandering across one of the great halls in search of refreshments. Britta skipped up to Oliver's side, grabbed him by the arm and physically swung him around. "What is happening in Wellenhay?" she asked. "Is everyone all right?"
"As far as I know, yes,” Oliver told her. He looked between the two villagers, the tall ships captain and the comely courtesan, and then spoke to Daniel. "I would have told you if anything untoward had happened in your village. Wellenhay was never in danger from Lindsey and his cavalry. It couldn't be because it cannot be approached by horse or by cart. Even your own horses must be pastured away from your island. Until the meeting I was not aware that it had been Wellenhay ships that had ferried the Norfolk Bands from Lynn to Boston."
Britta did a polite curtsey to Oliver, just low enough to have all the men around her stop what they were doing and watch. To Daniel she was not so polite. She took him by the elbow and steered him towards the front door. "Go, go now,” she ordered him. "Ride like the wind to Wellenhay and send me word of what is happening."
Daniel leaped to obey her order, but in the back of his mind he was thinking, "When did she get so formidable?"
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The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14