The King's Mistress (6 page)

“Oh, Father,” Jane said as John and the priest disappeared down the stairs. “The poor old man, walking all that long way back to Moseley in the rain.”

“Old he may be, but he’s a man still, and he’ll not melt. He’s doing what he can for our cause. I would I could do more, could have gone with your brothers to the fight.” Jane, standing behind her father’s chair, leaned her head onto his and put her arms around him. The thought of him fleeing from Worcester in the night was more than she could bear.

“I know you’d go to fight, but I’m glad you didn’t. What would we do without you here at home?”

He patted her hand and nodded. “Yes, yes. But it’s your brother I’m worried about.”

“No doubt we’ll hear more tomorrow,” she said.

J
ANE AND ALL THE HOUSEHOLD PASSED THE NEXT DAY IN A FEVER OF
anxiety about Richard. John went into Walsall and returned with newly printed broadsheets.

“‘A Letter from the Lord General Cromwell Touching the Great Victory Obtained Near Worcester,’” Jane read as Henry and her parents listened.

“I’ll warn you, it makes grim reading,” John said, sinking into a chair before the fire in the parlour.

“‘We beat the enemy from hedge to hedge, till we beat him into Worcester,’” Jane read. “‘He made a very considerable fight, and it was as stiff a contest for four or five hours as ever I have seen.’”

“And I make no doubt he’s seen some bad fighting,” John said, his face grim.

“‘In the end we beat him totally. He hath had great loss, and is scattered and run. We are in pursuit of him and have laid forces in several places, that we hope will gather him up.’” Jane read it over again. “Then they haven’t captured the king yet. At least that’s something.”

“Not yet. It’s hard to see how he can escape being taken, though.”

Athalia came in with a mug of something steaming. She brushed a lock of golden-brown hair from John’s forehead as she gave him the drink, and he kissed her hand and smiled up at her, his face tired.

“Here’s another,” Henry said, “‘A Full and Perfect Relation of the Fight at Worcester on Wednesday Night Last.’”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jane said. “It makes me too angry and sad.”

J
ANE WAS EAGER FOR NIGHT TO COME SO THAT
J
OHN COULD MAKE HIS
visit to Moseley Hall, and she waited up long after the rest of the family had gone to bed for his return, reading in the kitchen by lantern light. She found it difficult to keep her mind on
The
Aeneid
, and realised that she had been staring unseeing at the same page for several minutes, filled with anxiety about what tidings John would bring. It was near midnight when she finally heard his horse, and ran to the kitchen door to meet him.

“Richard’s alive and unhurt, or was two nights since,” John said as soon as he came in, unwrapping his heavy scarf and hanging his coat on a peg near the hearth.

“Thank God,” Jane cried. “Where is he? Did you learn more news of the battle?”

She added hot water and lemon to brandy and brought mugs to the table for both of them.

“Ah, that warms me,” John said, drinking. “Thank you, Jane. Yes, there is much news. It’s my old commander Lord Wilmot who has taken refuge at Moseley. He was in the thick of the battle, at the king’s side.”

He glanced around, as if spies lurked in the shadows, and lowered his voice.

“Jane, the king is alive and nearby.”

Jane smothered a gasp and leaned closer to John as he continued.

“When it became clear that the fight was lost, the king took flight from Worcester with the remains of his cavalry. A few hundred men, Wilmot said. Most of them headed for Tong Castle, having got word that General Leslie and what was left of the Scots infantry had gone there. Richard went with them, but Wilmot heard that all were taken prisoner before ever they reached Tong.”

Jane felt a cold knot form in the pit of her stomach. Richard a prisoner. He could be dead even now, perhaps shot or hanged with no deliberation or trial. She felt furious at her helplessness.

“And the king?” She spoke so low that she could hardly hear her own voice.

“The Earl of Derby urged the king to make for Boscobel, where Derby had been concealed after his defeat at Wigan. Charles Giffard of Boscobel was with them, though, and said that it had been searched but lately, and that Whiteladies might be safer. So the king, with only a few companions, rode through the night and reached Whiteladies about three in the morning.”

The hairs on the back of Jane’s neck stood up to think of the king being so near. The old Whiteladies priory, now owned by the Giffard family, was only some dozen miles away.

“There are cavalry patrols looking for him,” John continued, his voice rough with exhaustion and emotion. “So the Penderel brothers hid him in the wood nearby, and there he spent the day.”

“Dear God, in the rain.”

“Better wet than captured. Wilmot would not say more than that the king is now being helped by other good neighbours of ours, and with God’s grace will soon be on his way to safety.”

“What will Lord Wilmot do?” Jane asked. “He, too, must be fleeing for his life.”

John’s eyes met hers and he paused before he answered.

“Now must I tell you that we can help him. That you can help him.”

“How can I help him?” she asked in surprise.

“He must get to Bristol, where he can arrange for a boat to take the king to France.” Bristol. Only a few short miles from Ellen Norton’s home.

“My pass to travel.”

“Yes. Wilmot must play the part of your serving man, and ride with you to Abbots Leigh.”

The news took Jane’s breath away. She felt a thrill of fear, but it instantly gave way to excitement. An adventure. Lord Wilmot, friend of the king. She had never met the man, but his name conjured in her mind an image of a handsome and dashing officer. He would sweep her into his arms and together they would ride through peril. Once at Abbots Leigh, he could doff his disguise. By then perhaps he would be smitten with her … Jane checked herself. How ridiculous to be carried off in foolish fantasies, with all that lay at stake.

“Will I wait for Lord Wilmot at Ellen’s house until he has found passage for the king?” she asked. “Or return without him?”

“You’ll not ride alone. It’s far too dangerous, and moreover it would raise questions if you were stopped, especially as your pass is for you and a manservant. I’d go with you but my name and my face are too well known to the rebel commanders, and I’d put you in greater danger still. But we’ll find a way. If you’re willing.” He looked at her searchingly. “You need not do it.”

“Of course I’m willing! How could I do otherwise, when the life of the king is at stake?”

“Y
OU CANNOT GO
!” J
ANE’S MOTHER CRIED, HER HANDS FLUTTERING
in dismay.

Jane stood at the foot of her bed, folding three pairs of stockings into a nightgown and packing them into a satchel.

“With all those soldiers on the road?” Anne Lane paced, heels tapping on the floorboards, and then swooped to Jane’s side. “And Scots, most of them! You’ll be ravished and murdered.”

“I shall have protection, Mother,” Jane sighed, frowning as she noticed a small tear in the sleeve of her favourite shift. “John will arrange for one of our tenants’ sons to ride with me.”

“Small comfort! He may be worse than the soldiers, for all we know.”

Jane’s heart softened at the sight of her mother’s face, pink with agitation beneath her white cap, and she pulled Anne to sit beside her on the bed.

“Ellen is expecting me. Her first baby! I promised her as soon as she knew that she was with child that I would be there for her lying-in and to keep her company after. I cannot disappoint her.”

Jane’s mother sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her lace-edged handkerchief.

“I don’t know what John is thinking of. And your father. I should never have considered such a thing when I was a girl, and you may be sure my father and brothers would have had none of it.”

Jane’s favourite uncle, Hervey Bagot, was a colonel in the Royalist army, and his son Richard Bagot had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Naseby. She thought that they would certainly have been in favour of her doing whatever she could if it would save the king, but she merely took her mother’s hand and kissed her cheek.

“All shall be well, Mother. Cromwell’s men are too busy searching for the king to bother with me. And the poor Scots are fleeing for their lives, exhausted and hungry. I would be in more danger if I were a turnip.”

O
N
S
ATURDAY NIGHT
, J
OHN RETURNED TO
M
OSELEY
H
ALL TO MAKE
plans with Wilmot for his escape to Bristol with Jane and to bring Wilmot’s horses back to Bentley. Once more Jane waited for him in the kitchen, sitting at the big table in the middle of the room. She had brought knitting to keep her hands busy, but the activity didn’t still the turmoil of her mind, and she threw down the needles and yarn and went to the window again. The sliver of moon cast a faint silver glow over the stable yard and outbuildings, and all was quiet.

The big case clock in the great hall struck two when Jane finally heard John’s footsteps. She pulled the door open, and he moved heavily as he came in and threw off his coat. His whole aspect was one of despair and worry, and prickles of fear ran down her spine.

“What’s amiss? Is it Richard?”

“No,” he said, pulling a chair close to the fire and warming his hands above the flames. “I have no news of him.”

Jane put a mug of brandy and hot water into his hands and he inhaled the steam and drank before he spoke again.

“The situation is grown more perilous than it was. The king set out for Wales on Thursday night with one of the Penderels, but the crossing of the Severn is guarded by two companies of militia and all the boats have been seized. There was nothing for it but to return last night, and he’s back at Moseley.”

The king, only six miles away, and still in danger. It was like something out of a play, Jane thought.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “What will he do?”

The firelight flickered orange on John’s face, and it seemed to Jane there were lines around his eyes that had not been there only days earlier. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again.

“Jane, I am loath to say what I am about to because I would not put you in danger, but I can see no other way.”

Jane stared at him. What could he mean?

“The king must ride with you to Abbots Leigh. Not Wilmot, but the king himself.”

The shock was so great that Jane found she could say nothing.

“He’s already disguised himself, Wilmot says, cut his hair and changed clothes with a poor woodsman so that none would know him.”

Jane tried to picture the dashing young king who had rallied his troops at Worcester, grimy and unrecognisable.

“We can clothe him in better apparel, and hope that he’ll pass as your serving man. But, Jane, this is far more dangerous than riding with Lord Wilmot.”

“I must help him if I can.”

John stared into the fire, and shivered despite its warmth. “When the king’s friends parted from him at Whiteladies,” he said, “they begged him not to tell them his plans so they could not be forced to reveal them if they were put to torture. Jane, if you were to be taken … The danger is great.”

Jane swallowed. She was very much afraid at the thought of what might happen to her. But if she did not help the king to escape, surely he would be found and captured soon.

“I’ll do it.”

“Someone else must go with you.”

“Henry.” Jane had always felt that in the company of her cousin Henry she could come to no harm, and she felt the more so now that he was a soldier. She recalled the steely determination in his eyes when he had set off with John the few days earlier that now seemed so long ago, and his bitter disappointment when they had returned in confusion, having left too late to join the battle.

“Yes. Henry would go, and I’ll have less fear knowing that he’s with you.”

“But when shall we go? Surely soldiers will be searching the houses hereabout and are like to find the king?”

“Moseley has a priest hole, so the king is well hidden. But still he must fly soon.”

Jane had been shown a priest hole once, in the house of a Catholic friend. It was a little space, not more than four feet square and three feet high, just big enough to hide a man or forbidden articles such as crucifixes, the entry hatch concealed beneath a close stool in the floor of a closet. It had made her skin creep to think of climbing down into it, with no air and no light save for a candle, and her heart went out to the young king.

“Wilmot will send tomorrow to know if you’ll undertake the journey. Think it over.”

“I don’t have to think,” Jane said, pushing her fears aside. “Nothing could stop me.”

The next day after noontime dinner, John stopped Jane as she was heading upstairs to her room.

“Henry’s in the orchard. Come join us for a little chat.”

She grabbed a shawl and hurried out with him, relieved that Withy and her nose for secrets were nowhere to be seen. Henry was swinging by his arms from the branch of a great apple tree, and drew himself up higher before he dropped to the ground, dusting off his hands on the knees of his breeches. He was almost thirty, but there was something very boyish about the way his whole face was lit at the prospect of adventure, Jane thought.

“I’ll ride to Moseley again tonight,” John said, “and bring Wilmot back so we can make our final preparations, but let’s consult between us now.” He turned to Henry. “Jane’s pass is for her and a manservant, no more. I’m concerned that if I go back to Colonel Stone and ask to add someone else, it will draw attention we’d better avoid.”

“Agreed,” Henry said. “I’ll chance it. If we’re stopped and the king is recognised, the lack of a pass will be the least of our worries.” He grinned at Jane, eyes shining. “Didn’t think when you woke up a few days ago that we’d be saving the king’s neck, did you?”