Act of Oblivion, page 12
Four torches, gauzy in the falling snow, were moving in a file along the road and coming in through the gate. He could just make out a couple of figures, their shadows flickering on the snow, one of them carrying the long barrel of a musket.
He turned to Will, who was already on his feet. ‘They’re here,’ he whispered. ‘Four at least.’
Will nodded. He handed Ned his pair of pistols, then, taking his own and thrusting them into his pockets, he disappeared swiftly down the ladder, clutching his sword.
Their plan was to split their firepower, give an impression of greater force.
Ned went back to his lookout. The torches were halfway across the yard now. The telescope was useless. He withdrew it, poked one of the pistols into the gap and bent his head next to it. He had the advantage of height, about ten feet of it.
The familiar sensations before a fight. A tightness in his chest, a sharpening of his heartbeat, a peculiar cold calm. Oliver’s voice: Never wait for the attack to come to you, Ned. Always be the one who attacks first, no matter what the odds; rouse the spirit, have faith in the Lord . . .
The torches were closing in on the barn. He checked himself for a few moments longer, until he calculated Will must have had time to get into position, then took aim at the nearest of the flames and fired. A brilliant flash of powder. A deafening explosion. The smell of singed hair. He saw the torch drop, transferred his second pistol into his right hand, aimed again, fired again, didn’t wait to see the result but threw the pistols onto the straw, grabbed his sword and swung himself onto the ladder. There was such a ringing in his ears from the noise of the firing that he could barely hear the crack of Will discharging his own rounds from the door in quick succession. He thought he heard a shot returned from outside.
Terrified cows were struggling to their feet. The barn door had blown wide open. There was a blast of freezing air, and just sufficient light reflecting off the snow for him to make out Will standing beside it, his back to the wall, his sword drawn, discharged pistols at his feet. Ned herded the cattle before him. They scrambled to escape, blocking the door, colliding with one another, spilling out into the snow. He came up close to Will and spread his hands – where are they? Will shrugged and shook his head. The two men stood shoulder to shoulder. No sound of shots or human voices came from outside, just the frightened lowing of the cattle.
Ned said quietly, ‘How many were there – did you see?’
‘Too dark. Five or six, maybe.’
When the last of the animals had escaped and the barn was empty, Ned stepped cautiously into the doorway.
The snow was still coming down heavily. The cows had clustered at the far end of the yard, furthest from the house. Lights moved in the upstairs windows. Bonny was barking. The rest of the yard was empty save for one small winking flame on the ground about twenty paces away. Beyond it, a couple of torches were disappearing down the road towards the river.
They surely couldn’t be regular soldiers, he thought, not if they could be frightened off so easily. More likely Boston Royalists or those Scotch scoundrels after the reward.
He kept his sword drawn as he moved through the snow. He lifted the abandoned torch and shone it around. A trampling of panicky footprints, a patch of blood as big as a dinner plate, a smeary trail of scarlet, quite wide, gouged into the snow and already vanishing beneath the heavy fall. He followed the blood a short way until it disappeared, then squatted on his haunches and dug his fingers into the snow, uncovering the red stain. A bad wound, by the look of it. They must have had to drag the injured man away.
Will came up behind him. Ned straightened, wincing at the effort, his joints creaking; he was getting too old for this game, but was exultant as always after a fight. ‘We beat the dogs, Will!’
‘Aye, but they’ll be back. Perhaps even at first light. And there’ll be more of them, and they’ll be readier.’
Daniel Gookin had emerged from the house carrying a candle, protecting the flame with his hand against the falling snow. He waded knee-deep through the drift towards them. Mary, a coat over her nightdress, watched from the doorway. He called out, ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Not a scratch,’ shouted Ned cheerfully. Will was right, of course. If they stayed where they were, they were dead men. He looked up at the tumbling sky. A freezing gossamer mask of snow began to mould across his face.
The children had been woken by the gunshots and were out on the landing. Mary stood at the bottom of the stairs and kept the kitchen door closed behind her. The colonels heard her telling them it was nothing to be scared of – a hungry wolf prowling in the yard, their father had seen it off – and ordering them back to bed. Ned went outside to check if the attackers were returning, but there was nothing to see except darkness and snow.
After the children had been settled and the cattle driven back into the barn, the officers sat close to the kitchen fire. Steam rose from their damp clothes. The dog lay at Will’s feet. They recounted in quiet voices how they had repelled the attack, then listened in silence as Gookin told them of events in Boston. The Massachusetts Great and General Court had spent an entire day discussing their presence in the colony, and although Governor Endecott had refused to put the issue to a vote, it was clear that a majority now believed the situation to be intolerable: that the government in England was obviously firmly established, that it must soon learn the regicides had been enjoying sanctuary in the state, and that the King as a punishment might withdraw their royal charter.
‘Governor Endecott asked me to convey his personal regrets, but to warn you he has no choice except to issue an arrest warrant. He’ll try to delay it for a day or two so that you can get a head start, and the marshal general promises he’ll be less than diligent in his searches. Even so, the colony has become too dangerous for you. Bounty-hunters will soon be the least of your worries.’
Will said, ‘Then where are we to go?’
‘Somewhere beyond Massachusetts.’
‘But where?’
‘I think it must be the Connecticut Valley.’
In the silence that followed, the only sound was the crackling of the logs in the fireplace.
‘Is that not a great distance away?’
‘It is – a hundred miles or thereabouts. But its remoteness is its advantage. Connecticut is Puritan country, much more so than Boston. You’ll not find many Royalists there. And I know the state governor, John Winthrop. His late father was governor of Massachusetts some twenty years past. If any man can help you, Winthrop will. Hartford would be the town to aim for.’
Ned said, ‘Can we get so far in such weather?’
‘It can be done. It won’t be easy, mind. At this time of year there’s no forage, so it would be necessary to take only one horse, to carry supplies and baggage.’
‘We’d need to walk?’ ‘A hundred miles?’
‘Yes, but there are some Indian settlements along the trail where we could shelter overnight. The Old Connecticut Path can be hard to follow in winter, but I know it well enough.’
Mary looked at him, alarmed. ‘You’d go with them?’
‘Who else can guide them? They’d never manage such a distance alone.’
She folded her arms and stared into the fire. Another silence.
‘What do you say, Will?’ asked Ned.
Will was fondling the spaniel’s ears. They were like soft, warm silk. He had a sudden vision of Frances soon after they were married, naked in their bedroom in the firelight. He had to shake his head to empty it from his mind. ‘I say I’d like to lie in front of the fire like Bonny here, but God has chosen a harder road for us.’ He glanced around at the others. ‘I say we have no choice.’
Mary and Daniel withdrew to their room. The colonels collected their possessions from the barn. They reloaded their pistols at the kitchen table, then took it in turns to keep lookout until dawn, one stationed at the window while the other tried to doze in the glow of the fire.
It was during Ned’s second watch that the snowfall finally stopped. A spray of stars appeared above the yard, and a bright half-moon. The surface of the snow froze and crystallised; tiny points of ice glittered as if in reflection of the stars. He rubbed his thumb through the frost on the inside of the glass. It promised well for the morning. Better a hard surface for a long journey than drifts and slush and mud. Even so, a hundred-mile march at his age was not a prospect to be relished.
Mary came downstairs and hung a saucepan of meat broth to heat over the fire, then went into the pantry to pack food sufficient for a couple of days. ‘We’ll need no more,’ Daniel had told her. He had unlocked his money chest and produced strings of white and purple clam shells – the native currency. ‘I have plenty of wampum. We can buy from the Indians.’ She knew better than to try to argue with him once his mind was set. He came into the pantry while she was irritably wrapping a piece of spiced ham, and put his hands around her waist, nuzzled his cheek to hers, his beard rough against her skin. In the morning she knew her face would look as if she had been chapped by the cold.
‘You won’t get around me as easily as that, Dan Gookin.’
But he did, of course; he always did. She put down the ham and turned and kissed him on the mouth.
The four of them drank the broth by candlelight. Conscious of the children asleep upstairs, they didn’t speak much. By the time they were finished, a faint grey light was showing at the window.
Gookin went to the stables to fetch the horse. When he came back, they filled the saddlebags and loaded their belongings, then stood awkwardly in the kitchen until at Will’s suggestion they knelt together in prayer. ‘Let us comfort one another with the words of the psalm.’ He extended his hands, palms upwards. ‘“If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea, even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast.” O Lord, we commit ourselves to your service and to your care. Amen.’
‘Amen.’
They rose, and the three men embraced Mary in turn – Ned somewhat stiff and gruff, Will tenderly, and finally Daniel with a fierceness that almost crushed the breath out of her and which she knew was his way of promising he would return. He whispered, ‘I’ll be back within two weeks, I swear.’ She stood on the doorstep and watched them go. The cold seared her lungs so that it was painful to breathe in deeply. As they passed through the gate, Daniel first, leading the horse, they turned and waved – Will gallantly doffed his hat – then passed out of sight along the road towards the village.
The Cambridge farmsteads were dark with sleep. At the bend, just before the meeting house, the men crossed the frozen creek and followed the trail along the northern bank of the Charles River, their boots crunching through the thin crust of ice and sinking into the snow. After a couple of miles, the sun rose over the frozen landscape, and an hour later, they turned south-west, setting out across the immensity of dazzling virgin white towards the distant forest.
Chapter Thirteen
THE REGICIDE COMMITTEE of the Privy Council met that same morning in Whitehall Palace, at Nayler’s urgent request – Hyde in the chair, Sir William Morice, Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Sir Arthur Annesley all in attendance. They did not look pleased to have been summoned from their other duties by their clerk.
Hyde said, ‘Well then, Mr Nayler, here you have us – what is this about?’
Nayler took his usual place at the far end of the table and laid out his papers. His torpor of the past three weeks had vanished. He felt full of energy – dangerously so: he recognised this mood as well. He forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. ‘My lords, I am pleased to inform you that I have discovered the whereabouts of Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe.’
The news produced no more than a mild stir of interest around the table.
Hyde said, ‘Where are they? In England?’
‘No, Sir Edward, that has proved to be a false trail. They are in America. To be more exact, I understand them to be living in the settlement of Cambridge in Massachusetts, close to the port of Boston.’
Hyde looked disappointed. ‘Then they are not yet in our hands?’
‘Not yet, my lord. But they will be.’
‘That is hardly urgent news.’ Disappointment was turning to irritation. ‘Summon us when you have them both in chains, Mr Nayler. Then will be the time for congratulations.’ He turned to the Secretary of State. ‘Sir William, perhaps you would be so good as to ask Sir Edward Nicholas to draw up an order to the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, instructing him to make the arrests.’
Before Morice could reply, Nayler interrupted. ‘I fear the matter is not so easy, my lords. With your permission, may I bring a witness before the committee?’
Hyde glanced at the others. He puffed his cheeks and let out a breath. ‘If you must.’
Nayler walked across the corridor to his office. Nokes had left the room, and Captain Breedon was plainly in the act of studying the papers on his desk, although he made haste to step away as soon as Nayler came in. What a rogue he was! Nayler pretended he hadn’t noticed. ‘The committee will hear from you now, Captain Breedon. Remember what I told you: the facts alone, straight and plain.’
Most men might have felt some trepidation at appearing before the Lord Chancellor of England, a secretary of state and two Privy Councillors. Not so Breedon. He strolled into the council chamber with the confidence of a man about to sell a much-sought-after cargo to a group of eager merchants.
‘My lords, this is Captain Thomas Breedon, lately arrived from Boston.’
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Breedon. ‘It is an honour.’
Hyde raised his eyebrows, bemused but polite, and gestured to a seat.
When Breedon was settled in his chair, Nayler said, ‘Tell the committee what you told me yesterday.’
And to Nayler’s relief, he told it well – how he had sailed from England the previous June carrying, among other news, the names of those regicides whose surrender was demanded by Parliament under the terms of the Oblivion bill; how the ship had docked in Boston on 10 August and how some members of another crew had recognised Whalley and Goffe coming out of a church near the waterfront and walking with various leading Puritans to the house of the Reverend John Norton; how the Scotchmen had come to find him and how he had gone with them and confronted on the doorstep none other than the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony himself, John Endecott; how he had read out the order of Parliament and showed Endecott the names of those wanted; how he had seen Whalley and Goffe skulking in the room just behind the governor – ‘as plainly as I see you now, my lords’ – and how his request that they should be arrested had been rejected with contempt; how he had tried repeatedly in the weeks that followed to force Endecott to do his duty, only to be insulted and called a malignant; how ‘the marshal general grinned in my face and said, “Speak against Whalley and Goffe if ye dare, if ye dare, if ye dare”’.
‘The marshal general?’ repeated Hyde, astonished. ‘An official of the Crown, and that is what he told you?’
‘Exactly those words, Sir Edward. There are witnesses who will vouch for it.’
‘And the governor refused to act? That is an outrage.’
‘No, my lord,’ interrupted Morice, ‘that is treason.’
Annesley said, ‘Can you account for their extraordinary behaviour, Captain Breedon?’
‘I believe I can, sir.’ Breedon adjusted his cuffs and cleared his throat. ‘The settlers of New England divide between those who are members of the Puritan churches and those who are not. It is just as great a distinction in America nowadays as that which existed here between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. The Puritans – not all, but most – are old Cromwellians who refuse to accept the fact of His Majesty’s return. Some are even opposed to any longer maintaining a link with England. The most extreme assert that all secular authority should be subordinate to the elders of their church. The Puritans have the loudest voices in government, and it is they who protect Whalley and Goffe.’
‘And these regicides, they – what? – they live openly?’
‘Quite openly, sir. At the time I left Boston in December, they were lodged in Cambridge, just across the river, where they have been, as I understand it, since the day of their arrival. I am told they receive callers. They visit their neighbours. They meet in church on the Lord’s Day. And all the while they boast that if it came to it, they would sign the King’s death warrant again.’
‘Insufferable,’ muttered Ashley-Cooper.
Nayler said, ‘You will see now, my lords, why I thought the committee should hear directly from Captain Breedon. If we merely ask the governor in Massachusetts to arrest the traitors, nothing will happen.’
‘Clearly so,’ said Hyde. He tapped his forefinger against his lips, weighing the matter up. ‘Well, thank you, Captain. Your evidence has been most valuable.’
‘Is there nothing more I can add?’ A crafty look came into Breedon’s face. ‘In that case, may I most humbly raise the matter of the reward?’
‘The reward,’ said Nayler firmly, rising and placing his hand on the captain’s shoulder, ‘will be paid only to those who deliver the bodies of the fugitives to us, dead or alive.’ Discreetly, but with a hard grip, he pulled Breedon to his feet and steered him towards the door.
‘Your assistance has been noted,’ Hyde called after him. ‘I am sure some favour can be done in return, can it not, Mr Nayler?’
‘I shall see what is possible, Sir Edward.’
Nayler conducted Breedon back to his office. He was relieved to find that Nokes had returned to his desk. ‘That was exactly what was required, Captain. If you would be good enough to wait with Mr Nokes, I shall return directly.’
In the corridor, he paused and listened to the murmur of conversation from inside the council chamber. Remember to be calm, he told himself. The suggestion must come from them, not you. He took a breath, stepped into the room, and slipped back into his chair. Morice seemed to be proposing that they should send a warship with an expeditionary force. ‘It would not require too many men – fifty at most.’
