The King's Mistress (11 page)

Henry laughed, but it was to Jane that Charles was looking with a smile on his face.

A
S AFTERNOON DREW TOWARDS EVENING, A TALL CHURCH SPIRE
rose in the distance ahead.

“That will be Cirencester,” Henry said. “The Crown Inn is said to be friendly and comfortable, though right at the marketplace and heavily travelled.”

“Then the Crown it is,” Charles said. “I’ll keep to the room and keep my head down when I must pass among strangers.”

The Crown lay just off the main road and only feet from the medieval stone church. As they rode into the inn yard, Jane was alarmed to see that it was full of soldiers and that another party of troopers were right behind them.

“Never fear,” Charles murmured, dismounting. “Leave it to me.”

He helped her to the ground, and after an exchange of glances, Henry tossed him the reins of his horse as well. To Jane’s astonishment, Charles swaggered forward into the crowd of red-coated soldiers, bumping into shoulders, stepping on feet, and provoking a hail of oaths as the men scrambled to avoid being trampled by the horses.

“Have a care, you clotpole!”

“Poxed idiot!”

Jane made to step forward, but Henry’s hand on her arm stayed her. Charles glanced around as if in astonishment, his mouth gaping open.

“Beg pardon, your worships.”

His accent was thickest Staffordshire, as if he had grown up in the country around Bentley Hall. A burly sergeant, tall but not so tall as Charles, shoved him hard and glowered at him.

“You whoreson fool! Do you need teaching manners?”

He pulled back his fist, and Charles flinched as though in fear.

“Kick him like the dog he is, Johnno,” another soldier called, and there was a chorus of laughs.

Charles plucked his hat from his head and hung his shoulders in sheepish apology.

“I’m sorry, your worship. Most sorry, sir.”

Johnno stood sneering at him, as if deciding whether to strike him or not, but then shrugged.

“Well, get on with you, then. And let it be a lesson to you for next time.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Charles said, tugging at his forelock and grinning like a child reprieved from a whipping. “Thank you, sir.”

Nodding at the muttering soldiers to either side of him, he ambled towards the stable with the horses.

“I still say you should have thrashed him,” a second sergeant called out to Johnno.

“Not worth dirtying my coat.”

The men laughed, and turned their attention back to whatever they had been doing when they were interrupted.

“W
ITH ALL THESE SOLDIERS
I’
VE ONLY BUT TWO ROOMS LEFT,” THE
landlord said. “And not even room for your servant in the stable. He’ll have to sleep on a pallet in your room, sir.” He had witnessed the scene in the stable yard, and grinned at Henry. “Perhaps it’s just as well you keep the fool out of harm’s way.”

They ordered food to be brought upstairs rather than going down to the taproom to eat, and by the time Jane had washed her face and hands, the men were already waiting in Henry’s room. Charles, in breeches and shirtsleeves, was lounging on a chair near the fire, his long legs stretched before him and his feet propped on a stool. He looked like a great cat, Jane thought, watching the play of his muscles beneath the linen of his shirt. There was something catlike about the glint in his eyes, too, as he gave her a lazy smile.

“Well,” he grinned. “I reckoned that blundering among the troops would anger them so that they’d not think to look beyond their rage, and so it did. But the ostler had keener eyes. As soon as I came into the stable, I took the bridles off the horses, and called him to me to help me give the horses some oats. And as he was helping me to feed the horses, ‘Sure, sir,’ says he, ‘I know your face.’”

Jane gasped and Henry looked at him in alarm, and Charles nodded wryly.

“Which was no very pleasant question to me, but I thought the best way was to ask him where he had lived. He told me that he was but newly come here, that he was born in Exeter and had been ostler in an inn there, hard by one Mr Potter’s, a merchant, in whose house I had lain at the time of war.”

“What ill luck!” Henry exclaimed.

“I thought it best to give the fellow no further occasion of thinking where he had seen me, for fear he should guess right at last. Therefore I told him, ‘Friend, certainly you have seen me there at Mr Potter’s, for I served him a good while, above a year.’ ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘Then I remember you a boy there.’”

Jane laughed at Charles’s impersonation of the ostler, nodding in sage satisfaction.

“And with that,” Charles continued, “he was put off from thinking any more on it but desired that we might drink a pot of beer together. Which I excused by saying that I must go wait upon my master and get his dinner ready for him, but told him that we were going for London and would return about three weeks hence, and then I would not fail to drink a pot with him.”

“Quick thinking, Your Majesty,” Henry grinned.

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of dinner. Once the kitchen boy was gone, Jane made to serve Charles, but he waved off her attentions and begged her and Henry to sit and eat with him.

Riding pillion for so many miles was wearying, and Jane’s body ached in unaccustomed places. The men appeared exhausted as well, and hot food and warmed wine brightened their spirits and revived their energy.

“Do you know”—Charles smiled over a leg of chicken—“I begin to think that I may be safe after all. Only one more day of riding, and we shall be at Bristol.”

“And nothing will hinder us from getting you there, Sire,” Henry said, “though it costs my life.”

Charles looked from Jane to Henry. “I can only hope that I will see the day when I can honour you as I wish for the help you have given me. I have been much humbled by the love and care shown to me by so many of my people these last days. Most of them have been poor folk with little enough for themselves, but they’ve risked their lives to keep me safe, and offered all they have. Indeed, one of them gave me the shirt off his back, quite truly.”

He plucked at his shirt, now grimy from the ride but clearly new.

“The people love you, Your Majesty,” Jane said. “And pray for your return.”

But none of them love you so well as I do,
she thought, watching the flickering firelight play on his face.

Charles looked around the room, cosy with the fire crackling, its light chasing the shadows away, and smiled.

“A bed to sleep in tonight! I will ne’er take such comfort for granted again.”

“Of course you shall have the great bed, Your Majesty,” Henry said, “and I will take the pallet.”

“Even a pallet would be welcome,” Charles laughed, “and a great improvement from doubling myself up in priest holes, and a day spent sleeping in a tree.”

“In a tree?” Jane asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” Charles said. “When I was at Boscobel, the Giffards feared I would be discovered if I stayed within, even in the priest hole, so I spent a long day in an oak some little way behind the house, my head resting upon the lap of one Colonel Carlis, who I think you know?”

“Yes, an old friend,” Jane said.

“Cromwell’s men were searching in the woods nearby, and it scarcely seemed possible that we should escape detection. And yet despite all that, I was so tired, having gone three nights without sleep, that I slumbered, my head resting on the good colonel’s lap.”

“Will you tell us of the fight at Worcester, Your Majesty?” Henry asked, pouring more wine for all of them. “We’ve only heard pieces of the story, and none from any who know what happened so well as you.”

Charles’s eyes darkened, and Jane thought of the stories of confusion, despair, and horror she had heard from the soldiers fleeing from the battle.

“It was a desperate venture, in which people were laughing at the ridiculousness of our condition well before the battle. We had been three weeks marching from Scotland, with the rebels pursuing us, when we limped into Worcester. We knew Oliver was on his way with thirty thousand men, and I had but half that number, hungry, sick at heart, already worn out, many lacking even shoes to their feet.”

Jane thought of the ragged survivors on the road past Bentley the day after the battle. It was a wonder any had survived at all, she thought, if they had begun in such desperate condition.

“We needed every advantage we could get. We blew up the bridges leading to the town, dug earthworks, built up the fort, and waited. When at length Cromwell came, he fired upon the city, but made no further move for three days.”

Charles was on his feet now, pacing. Jane could imagine only too well the tension of the young king and his soldiers, knowing the battle would come but not when, having to stay vigilant and ready despite their exhaustion and apprehension.

“He was waiting, you see, for the third of September.” Charles turned to them, a bitter smile creasing his face. “A year to the day since he beat us at Dunbar. And when that day dawned, he moved.”

“John Lane and I were on our way to Worcester on that day, even as the fight was under way,” Henry said. “I would we had reached you in time to be of use.”

“I would you had, too. Had we had but a few thousand more so stouthearted, perhaps the fight would have ended differently.”

He leaned a hand on the mantelpiece and stood staring down into the fire. Jane tried to imagine how a battle started.

“How did it begin? How did you know what to do, how to place your men?” she asked.

“I began the day atop the cathedral with my officers,” Charles said. “Where we could see for miles in every direction. My heart was in my throat, I can tell you, to see the enemy off to the south, so numerous.”

Jane’s throat tightened to think what he must have felt, seeing the possibility of death and destruction marching inexorably towards him.

“I cannot say whether our hopes or fears were greatest that morning, but we had one stout argument—despair. For we knew that everything rested on the outcome of that day, and for me it would be a crown or a coffin. I took a last look at that great sweeping view, the wind on the river, my men massed and waiting, and went down to fight.”

Jane pictured him, mounted and armed, raising his sword aloft, rallying his men to battle.

Follow your spirit; and upon this charge

Cry “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

“If bravery and determination alone were enough, you would have won,” she said.

“You held the fort and the city walls for most of the day, did you not, Your Majesty?” Henry asked.

“So we did. The tide turned, alas, when they overran the fort, and turned our guns against us. The Duke of Hamilton, who led the Scots so valiantly, was grievous wounded by a cannonball.”

Jane winced. A cannonball could easily take off a man’s head or cut him in two.

“His men held off the charge at Sidbury Gate as long as they could, but once the enemy was within the city walls, the day was lost.”

“My lord Wilmot says he never saw a fiercer fight,” Henry said.

“My men made a last stand near the town hall, and I hope I may never see such a sight again as the red of the setting sun on the blood in the streets. But it just gave me time to get to my headquarters, cast off my armour, and bid Wilmot to meet me outside the gate with fresh horses if it could be done. As it was, I heard them breaking down the front door even as I slipped out the back, and though it was only steps to St Martin’s Gate, it was a near thing that I got out.”

His look of bleak despair chilled Jane’s heart, and she wished she could take him into her arms and comfort him.

“There was no other way, surely,” she said, “but for you to fly?”

“No,” Charles agreed. “My life and any hope for the future of the kingdom would have been lost had I tarried but five minutes longer. Outside the walls, Wilmot and I encountered some of our troops. I tried to rally them to go back and try once more, but it was no use, and it would probably have done little but let me die fighting instead of fleeing.”

The fire was burning low, and Jane was exhausted with the day’s riding. She longed for a minute alone with Charles, but there seemed no graceful way to manage it, so she rose to leave. Charles’s eyes met hers, and she felt their heat.

“Let me light you to your room, Mistress Jane,” he said, picking up the candle from the table.

“I’ll do it, Your Majesty,” Henry said, rising.

“Sit, Lascelles,” Charles said, and it was not a request. “I said I’ll light the lady’s way.”

Henry bowed his head in assent, though Jane could practically hear the questions and protests in his mind.

“Good night, Henry,” she said demurely, not meeting his eyes. “I’ll see you on the morrow.”

Candle in hand, Charles led the way down the passage. He loomed before her in the darkness, the candlelight silhouetting him in its golden glow. In a moment they would be alone. Her heart beat faster at the thought of his arms around her, his mouth on hers. But to Jane’s disappointment, when they got to her room he opened the door for her but did not follow her inside. She looked up at him, not quite daring to reach out a hand to touch him, to tilt her head back and draw him into a kiss. He took her hand, turned it over, and the feel of his lips on her palm made her belly contract with desire.

“I’ll go back to your cousin now, sweet Jane.”

No,
Jane thought,
don’t go.

Charles smiled and stroked her cheek, as if reading her thoughts. “Henry has hazarded his life for my safety, and I would not cause him unease or make him think I regard you with less than honourable respect, which indeed I do not.”

“Then good night, sir,” Jane said, turning.

“But, Jane,” Charles said, stopping the door with his foot, “I’ll see you in my dreams, make no mistake.”

T
HE WAY TO
A
BBOTS
L
EIGH LAY THROUGH
B
RISTOL
. T
HIS WAS THE
most dangerous part of the journey yet, as Charles had spent some months there during the war and might be recognised, though he had aged from the sixteen-year-old boy who had left to the man he was today. Still, it was risky. Henry rode ahead, and Jane could see his shoulders tighten with tension as the increased traffic on the road told them they must be close to the city. His hand strayed to feel for the pistol at his belt, and he eyed passing strangers warily, as though a bent old woman with a flock of geese might be hiding a Parliamentary trooper beneath her skirts.