Rebels and Traitors (22 page)

Stabbing him dead was beyond her. She had no knife anyway, though she wanted to do it. The Royalist was an aristocrat, like Sir Thomas Holte of Aston. Kinchin hated all his kind. So she crouched in silence, guarding her prey like a fox staring at a chicken house, until she could complete her search. She thought the man knew she was there. She thought he must know why.

As dusk fell, a new group of horsemen approached at a canter, thwarting her. Men dismounted and, looking over their shoulders in case of attack, they began hastily inspecting the now naked bodies. Kinchin Tew clung on there, but eventually a young red-haired cavalier came to the old man. She had lost her chance.

‘Denbigh is over here — still breathing! Damme, he’s been stripped; can somebody cover him? We must keep him warm. What are you up to, young savage?’ Treves demanded of Kinchin sharply. His light blue eyes had summed up her filthy condition and her watchfulness. Suspicious, he dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder.

‘I saw he was alive, sir. I wanted to help him.’ Flagrantly pretending innocence, Kinchin in turn assessed this young fellow, a sharp-featured carrot-top who sounded too full of confidence. He lost interest in her, and was examining the earl’s bloody head wounds, wincing. She eyed Edmund’s clothes, which were plainer than those her family had dragged off to the woods, but still worth selling … He had too many men with him to risk it.

‘Did you see who looted these bodies?’

‘No, sir.’

‘This is an important lord, a favourite of Prince Rupert’s.’ With a grunt of exertion, Treves was helping another man lift and put the badly injured earl over a horse’s back. ‘He needs attention urgently. Is there a surgeon in Birmingham?’

Reluctantly Kinchin nodded. ‘Come up on Faddle.’ Moments later, Treves had hoisted her up behind him on his own horse, where she clung on to his wide leather belt as he sped back into town. Adapting rapidly, she soon relaxed, as if riding on horseback behind Royalist gentlemen was her natural mode of travel. Her bare feet bounced against Faddle’s hot flank and she now held Edmund round the waist with one skinny bare arm, fully confident she would not fall off.

As they rode into Birmingham, Kinchin squealed at what she saw. Cavaliers were breaking into all the houses. They were frightening the poor, threatening the rich, picking pockets and cursing, some in strange languages. Quartermasters pretended to arrange billets, an excuse for blackmail and bullying. Men were crashing about as they searched for concealed treasure or weapons — peering down wells and into pools, smashing roof tiles, running crazily through gardens. Carts and market trolleys were being piled high with stolen goods. A smell of smoke, different smoke from the normal hearth and forge fires, hung ominously in the damp April air.

Kinchin guided Treves to the surgeon’s house and was put down to knock, but a maid came out looking flustered. The girl informed them that Mr Tillam had himself been shot, very seriously in the leg and thigh, as he stood at his house door, wanting to welcome the cavaliers. He was a Royalist supporter — or had been.

The surgeon’s maid shot Kinchin a look of amazement. ‘Get out of the road, Kinchin Tew, or the mad devils will shoot you too! I’m for hiding in the attic, me.’

Kinchin felt very frightened. Darkness had fallen. There was more noise than she ever remembered in Birmingham; the strange hubbub was clearly hazardous. Evening was for scavengers, but the Tews had lost their rights in Birmingham tonight. Louder, stronger, wickeder men had taken over.

After a brief debate with his fellow soldiers, Treves opted to carry the injured earl to the prince’s headquarters; Rupert had bedded in at the Ship Inn. ‘Where can I take you, mistress?’ he enquired of Kinchin politely, leaning down from Faddle. The barefoot girl was still standing in the street, wondering what to do next. Having brought her as his guide, Edmund felt concerned; he knew what was likely to happen in this town tonight. But Denbigh was fading, so he was in a hurry.

Kinchin thought Treves was jesting. He must see her grimy condition. His genuine gallantry impressed her, however. She considered him an innocent; she even thought him stupid — yet she felt touched.

Her predicament was awkward. She could not ask to be taken back to her family, hiding up in the woods with their plunder. Instead, she assured Treves she had friends nearby. She convinced the cavalier the Swan Inn was a place of safety. So Kinchin watched her red-haired gallant move off through the chaos towards the Ship, where the prince was. She felt a sense of loss, and almost wished she had stayed with Treves, riding high on Faddle, to see out her adventure.

As soon as she was left alone, Kinchin panicked. Gun smoke and the stench of burned houses made the air close. Many more soldiers were noisily pouring into town; they must have come up from Henley-in-Arden during the afternoon. All around her were sounds of assault. Birmingham would normally be dark and still at this hour, with only a warm hum from tavern interiors; now it seemed alive with violence. Breaking window glass crashed and splintered. Men’s harsh voices bellowed and swore. Women screamed. A group of prisoners were marched up to the Bull Ring, jostled and bullied by cavaliers who intended their racket to be heard and feared. Kinchin watched them searching the prisoners for money, amid threats and demands for large ransoms.

Nervously, she crept into the Swan’s small courtyard, relieved that this dim area seemed comparatively quiet. A lantern swung beside the taproom. The door stood closed against the evening chill. A streak of faint light came from the stables. It was oddly still. She missed the normal buzz from regular drinkers. Even so, nothing seemed too badly amiss in those first moments.

Horses clattered up suddenly. As riders burst through the gateway, Kinchin froze. Alert for new customers, Thomas threw open a stable door and emerged from the warm stalls as he always did, ready to take the horses. He limped forwards obligingly, one hand outstretched to gather bridles, a smile of welcome blossoming.

Pistols shot. The ostler fell to the cobbles. Three cavaliers trotted right over him, and dismounted. They shouldered open the taproom door and entered, calling loudly for ale. None glanced back.

The flurry of noise over, there was silence. Kinchin stared. Thomas lay face down in the dark yard, one arm still outstretched. He must be dead. Who would do that? Why do it? He was not a threat. He was only doing his duty, coming to take their horses.

A new Royalist rode in. In a terrible miscalculation Kinchin believed this man brought help. Hard eyes took in the dead ostler, the dark pool of blood around Thomas, and the shaking girl. He levelled a gun. She had made a mistake.

He was covering her with the carbine. Faint light from the stable fell across him. Kinchin would never lose that image: the man ready to kill her, the huge horse, the filled moneybags tied to the saddlebow, the heavy spurred riding boots, the aimed gun in his gloved hand — and the reckless tilt to his curling brimmed black hat, with its bright turquoise band.

He chose not to shoot. The day was ending; he wanted rest and ale. She felt the hot breath of his high-spirited horse as the rider pressed forwards to the taproom, then she clutched up her skirts, passed by him and ran like a rat, sliding out of the Swan gate in one long speechless streak, so secretly and swiftly the cavalier must have wondered if he ever really saw her.

With a thundering heart, Kinchin flung herself into a dark doorway, hoping to escape notice from the soldiers in the High Street. Shaking and petrified, she tried to breathe. Her lungs refused to expand. Her muscles seemed unable to bear her up.

‘Where’s your God Brooke now?’ jeered raucous Royalists to their cowed prisoners, as they herded these beaten men into the Swan. ‘Where’s your Coventry now?’

Worn out and depressed, the Birmingham men in shirts and stockinged feet were holding up their britches; their coats, their belts and their boots had been stolen. They limped inside to the courtyard. Kinchin thought she spotted the smith Lucas among the wretched crowd. A baffled cavalier demanded of one prisoner, ‘How can you take up arms against your oaths of allegiance and royal supremacy?’

The Birmingham man retorted, ‘I never did and never would take any such oaths!’

A furious blow with a musket butt sent him flying — though he was not killed, because the Royalists were still hoping to make money from their captives. Kinchin heard grumbling that Prince Rupert would be annoyed that the ransoms from their impoverished opponents were only tuppence, eight pence, a shilling, and occasionally twenty shillings. More than one of the prisoners made indignant protests, claiming to be no soldier and no rebel but a faithful supporter of the King … a plea which earned only laughter. The soldiers declared that any forced ransom would be received as well by His Majesty as if it were a voluntary gift.

While Kinchin crouched in shadow, a familiar sight transfixed her: down the dark street, head in the air and eyes vague, sauntered Mr Whitehall. The crazy parson picked his way among the debris as if puzzled how so much clutter came to be littering the town. He sniffed the air, troubled by the smoke. He was walking about openly, either unafraid of the Royalists or unaware of danger. Kinchin now hardly knew which way to turn to avoid a mauling, yet Whitehall had not seen her so she clung to her dark space, still in shock after the brutal killing of Thomas.

Lit by flickers of candlelight through windows where the shutters had been flung open, the lunatic’s long dark coat and white neckbands marked him out as clergy. Cavaliers quickly spotted him — and saw sport. They supposed he was Minister Roberts, whom they loathed. Despite all Mr Whitehall’s past assaults, Kinchin almost shouted a warning. She dared not. Boisterous men surrounded him, shoving him to and fro, laughing at him, demanding whether he wanted quarter. Too crazy for caution, Mr Whitehall cried: ‘I will have no quarter! I scorn quarter from popish armies! Your King is a perjured and papistical King! I would rather die than live under such a King! I would gladly fight against him —’

A poleaxe blow ended his rant. Cheering Royalists moved in and hacked him to death. They disembowelled him by twisting swords in his guts; then they quartered the body as if this were a formal execution. Searching his pockets, they found hand-written papers. Sordid stories of his attempts on local women were read out aloud gleefully, then came ribald promises to publish them to a wider audience. ‘A comfortable kiss from one woman, a cinnamon kiss from another — and another from one of just fourteen —’ Kinchin trembled, terrified she would be identified.

The cavaliers went up and down the town, exulting that they had killed Minister Roberts.

Only feet away from parts of the blood-soaked corpse, the distressed young girl still cowered. She felt no joy that Mr Whitehall’s death had freed her. Worse dangers walked abroad; she felt as vulnerable tonight as she had ever been.

Once the killers moved off, the High Street emptied temporarily. Kinchin made a quick bolt for the only place that might offer her refuge. Shuddering and stumbling, she fled through the Corn Cheaping and around the houses by the church. Everywhere, doors stood wide open. From within the small houses came strangers’ swearing and carousing. Little Park Street seemed darker and quieter, though a group of horses and carts should have told her that Royalists were close. Sure of kindness awaiting, she rushed in through the half-open door to the Lucases’ kitchen, then realised her error.

A fug of tobacco smoke met her. Big men with loud voices had taken control of the smith’s home. They were ransacking domestic cupboards, upsetting utensils, devouring food and drink, terrorising the family. As Kinchin ran in, two moustached cavaliers in open jerkins with their great boots astride the kitchen bench, raised overflowing tankards in a toast to Prince Rupert’s dog: ‘Here’s a gallant health to Boy!’ Another, with forward teeth and a wide mouth, was rocking the baby’s cradle with the point of his sword. Across the room, Kinchin saw the terrified Mistress Lucas, gripped by a soldier who had his pistol at her breast. He kicked open a door that led to stairs up into the bedroom.

‘Damme! A girl —’ Kinchin’s arrival caused brief delight — then disgust when they saw her condition. The men turned up their noses, just as she was repulsed by them; they reeked of horseflesh, stale ale and sour shirts. Their clothes and long hair were pickled in old smoke and sweat. A filthy monster —’ The man’s slurred accent was thick.

‘What are you?’ Her shocked whisper came out automatically.

‘We are Frenchmen!’ He was so drunk he could not boast and control a tankard simultaneously, but spilled ale over one flowing shirtsleeve. We have volunteered to save your miserable kingdom — we French, some Germans, Irish, Dutch, and Swedes.’

The baby was screaming. Now almost a year old, he was big enough to struggle upright in the cradle. Kinchin had never taken to this child; the chubby fellow in his knitted cap and embroidered bib was too clean, possessed too many home-made toys and was far too happy He was always being given attention — kissed on the head as his mother passed his warm cradle, dandled by neighbours, fed little titbits, taken down to the forge to see his father …