Rebels and traitors

Chapter Thirty-Three — Oxford: June 1645

Oxford always had violent noises at night. In the last month of her pregnancy, Juliana slept fitfully. When she realised there was knocking at the street door, she roused herself. Tipsy soldiers and ne'er-do-wells sometimes banged as they passed. Although it was intended to cause anxiety, the malefactors rarely kept it up but staggered on their way. Juliana longed to return to sleep, but she lay partly tensed for trouble.

When this noise became too insistent to ignore, she pulled a shawl around her shoulders. Stumbling and complaining, she blundered downstairs without lighting a candle. It was high summer and must be after midnight, judging by the dawn light which had already filtered through window curtains. The knocking continued. As she was about to unfasten the door onto St Aldate's, she became sufficiently alert to stop, laying her head against the wood and calling out, 'Who is it? Who goes there?'

'Juliana!'

She recognised Colonel Mcllwaine's voice. In a flurry, she hastened to draw the bolts and open up. Sleepily laughing, she began to apologise for keeping him standing out on the doorstep of his own house.

'Juliana.' She stopped talking when she saw his face. 'Juliana.' The figure she admitted was spectral and abrupt. Seizing her shoulders, the colonel dropped a kiss upon her forehead with a kind of fervent despair. 'Lock the door — lock it tight!'

He strode past, making his way to the kitchen where faint warmth still came from the embers of the fire. He flung his muddy cloak on a chair, his hat — in which was a wizened wreath of vegetation — upon the table. He sank down on a bench. He laid his head in his hands, then shuddered long and hard.

Juliana hovered in the doorway behind him, stricken.

She recognised a man in trouble when she saw one. Lumbering to the hearth, fastening the loose ribbons on her nightgown for decency, she knelt and raddled up the coals, reaching for a pan to heat hot water. At the noise of utensils, Mcllwaine raised his head. Always hook-shouldered and gaunt, his general appearance seemed unchanged, yet she noticed he was wearing his swordbelt but the hangers were empty. He had been waiting out of doors on foot; quickly she wondered where he had stabled his horse and what condition the beast was in.

'Let me find you food and drink.' She managed to keep her tone level. In response, the colonel breathed once rapidly, then he groaned. Juliana sat back on her heels and remained still. Moments passed, seeming long and extraordinary.

'Hot water to wash then,' she suggested gently.

'I want nothing… You are very kind.' Juliana read the worst into that heavy statement. This was a man in deep grief.

'You have come alone, sir?' Doggedly she began to prod for explanations: 'There have been rumours of fighting — but there are always rumours, usually wrong…' Only a slight lift of the colonel's chin, and maybe a shadow in his dark eyes, confirmed for her that battle had taken place. 'For the love of God, Owen, tell me what has happened.'

Then, because he was a professional soldier, Owen Mcllwaine straightened up. In terse, bitter language, he explained what befell the King's army at Naseby. Written in a letter, it would have been only a paragraph. Fairfax and Cromwell took little more, when they reported their triumph to their masters in Parliament; for the defeated there was even less to say. The unembroidered facts were bleak. They had lost the battle. The royal cause had lost all hope. Victory, in the widest possible sense, belonged to Parliament.

This crisis was dire, but Juliana's preoccupations were different from those of the despondent Irishman. Struggling with good manners, she tried to drag out of him what she needed to know: 'You escaped with your life and I am heartily glad… What can you tell me of Orlando, please?'

As if she had overstepped good taste, the colonel rounded on her: 'When we rode from the field, I did not see him. He is gone, Juley!'

'Gone? What do you mean? Did you see what happened to him?' The colonel raised his shoulders a little, in a weary shrug. 'So you did not see him?'

He did not search, she thought. He was distancing himself from Lovell. This was hers to deal with. She was a woman alone, with one child to care for and another about to be born any day -

Sensing rebuke, Mcllwaine flared, 'You must suppose him lost. There was a field of blood more than a mile long! Men dead and men not yet quite dead… Men who ought to be dead, but who refused to go to their God in timely fashion, groaning and twitching…'

'But if you did not see him,' Juliana insisted dully, 'there must be hope?'

Mcllwaine gave her a cold look. Even with her mind racing about what would happen to her, her young son Tom, the baby that would be born in two weeks, Juliana realised there was some great matter he was not yet telling her. A still, terrifying voice warned her in advance. 'Why is Nerissa not with you? Did you lose her in the confusion?'

'I lost her,' agreed Owen. His voice was terrible.

There was a tortured silence as the man found himself devoid of speech. Then, quite suddenly, words broke from him. Juliana would always afterwards remember that moment and how the coals collapsed down so the fire blazed up suddenly, just when he told her. For the rest of her life she would remember the sudden heat and the crackle of the flames. She had to control the urge to lean back away from the heat on her face. She could not ply poker and brush in the normal hearth routine. A spark fell on her nightgown but she brushed it off discreetly.

'Nerissa was never one to seclude herself in a fine carriage. There were noblewomen who did that, and I suppose they were treated by the victors accordingly. Nerissa always saw it as her duty to guide the junior officers' and soldiers' wives.'

'So?'

'So, when the New Model Army troopers burst in among our women in their tranquil camp site, Nerissa stood among them. The Roundheads could not understand the women; they called them Irish papist whores. They began mutilating the poor creatures — slashing their noses as a sign they were supposed to be harlots, making them too ugly to ply such a trade… The bloodlust took hold; they callously slaughtered dozens. I am told that Nerissa marched forwards and stood up to the men indignantly. She cursed their blind morals and their cruelty — but not for long. Irish herself and not denying it, she quickly received punishment.'

Survivors, blood still pouring from their slit noses, had told Owen when he came to search. At his insistence, they showed him his wife's mangled body. He wept as he told Juliana.

'We were going home to Ireland. I shall go to Ireland still — in bitter sorrow that I must return alone. We thought if we were ever separated, Nerissa would bear that burden. This is not planned for, Juliana. Oh, how am I to deal with it?'

'Save yourself.' Not weeping herself yet, though tears were all too close, Juliana's throat had dried; her voice came as an angry croak. 'Leave this terrible, blood-soaked country. It is what she would want.'

Owen Mcllwaine had had a long weary ride in which to think about his future. 'What is the point?' he asked, though it was a mere murmur of exhaustion. 'What is the point of anything?'

Women have their work. Juliana set aside her feelings. She kept going, temporarily, playing at housewife. She organised a bed, persuaded the colonel to take nourishment, saw him safe to his room. Then she roused Nerissa's servant and told her what had happened, so that Grania's first terrible torrent of distress could happen out of Owen's hearing and before little Tom awoke.

'The colonel will take you with him back to Ireland, Grania. He has come to Oxford to fetch you. He will take you safely home.'

He had come for the family valuables too, Juliana realised. Because of her friendship with his wife, she knew what the Mcllwaines owned, and where they kept it. A discreet man, the colonel systematically gathered together the money, the papers and his wife's jewellery next day. There was silverware, off which they had all so often dined convivially — battered old Irish cutlery, chargers and dishes collected in France, ridiculously tall German goblets — and there were Venetian glasses, which were housed, wrapped in green velvet, in their own casket. Most precious and rare, there was a clock.

The colonel worked fast and miserably, and he worked alone. As a couple the Mcllwaines had been generous with their energy, to the King they served and to their own friends, yet they had controlled their affairs with caution. They had lived, worked, fought, always with their eventual retirement in mind. Even Grania, the family retainer, had been kept in their household as someone who might tend them in old age. When Grania made a desultory offer to stay with Juliana until she gave birth, that was never a real option. 'No; you must go with the colonel. Mistress Mcllwaine would expect you to look after him, now he is desolate. I have a midwife arranged for my lying-in; I shall do well enough.'

Juliana would never be able to afford to keep a servant. That was so evident, she barely considered the issue. So long as the colonel remained in the house, she was deferring any hard look at her future, but it could only be a life of poverty.

Mcllwaine stayed two days. On the night before he left, he allowed Juliana to prepare a decent supper, set formally at table, instead of the hurried snacks he had taken in his own unhappy company. She dressed in the best gown she owned that would fit over her expanded belly; she wore the pearl necklace Lovell had brought back from campaign. Her son Tom and the servant Grania dined with them; little Tom, on what passed for his best behaviour, sat on a pile of cushions, tied with a sash to the tall chair-back. Afterwards Grania cleared the table, put the child to bed and retired to pray and weep for her lost mistress, leaving Juliana and the colonel to conduct dreary finalities.

Mcllwaine now told Juliana the house had its rent paid up until December; she was welcome to have use of it for that period. He had listed various pieces of furniture that he could neither take with him nor sell; these were hers on permanent loan. He handed her one flat, velvet-lined jewel case containing an antique Irish gold-set sapphire necklace and earrings, which he said Nerissa had wanted her to have. Then he tried, as far as honesty would let him, to pretend that her husband might still return.

"We shall see.' Juliana quietly folded her hands and wished the conversation were over. For her there was no point in speculation. Either Orlando would turn up, completely out of the blue as was his habit, or in time she would have to accept he was not coming back. She might never discover what had happened to him. They had made no plans for this eventuality, so she must make the best of it. With resignation she saw that, back in Wallingford, Orlando had chosen her on a raffish presumption that, unlike women with more conventional upbringings, Juliana Carlill had enough spirit to fend for herself. If he was alive still, he would not be worrying about her.

It was a night for plain speaking. There in the twilight, Nerissa's widower and her young friend spent time talking about her. Owen and Juliana went through the difficult, necessary conversation bereaved people inflict upon themselves: they reviewed Nerissa's talents and reminisced over special events they had shared with her, as if they were fixing those dear past times in the memory.

'I shall never forget how, in the big fire here last October, we had scuttled for our lives over into Christ Church quadrangle and as we pushed in among the cattle some men ogled us — Nerissa gurgled with laughter and whispered to me, "If we were not good wives, we should fill in the hour while the flames are doused, having liaisons with these gallants!'"

'She was never a one for the gallants,' Owen congratulated himself.

'Oh do not be so sure, my dear! She would eye up a gallant astutely — you were safe because of her wisdom; those dark eyes of hers would twinkle as she knew them all for shallow idiots…'

Very carefully, avoiding too much emotion, they listed the qualities of loyalty and courage that had made Nerissa follow Owen and the army, and the sense of justice that made her denounce the New Model Army troopers who were savaging the other women.

The colonel had drunk deeper than usual. There were a few good bottles of wine in the cellar and this was his last chance to enjoy them. When he soldiered on the Continent, he and Nerissa had more than once moved on and left a life behind, but he had never had to do it alone. Nerissa had been there, ready to prepare some new home wherever they landed up. As he stretched his long legs and brooded, Juliana considered privately how relationships between families worked and sometimes shifted. Nerissa had been her friend; she took in the Lovells to be part of her household, yet it was her gift to Juliana specifically. The two couples had lived side by side, though theirs was never the timeless friendship that came from years of living in neighbouring villages or adjacent town houses, nor had they a history of working together as courtiers. Even though Juliana and Owen had just talked intimately about Nerissa, in truth she barely knew the man. She was not certain he understood why Nerissa had been so fond of her. Perhaps she and Owen were each a little jealous of Nerissa's closeness to the other… Now friendship would continue on the surface, but awkwardly. If Lovell had been here, that would have been worse.

Addressing the issue of Lovell more freely than usual, Juliana said abruptly: 'You do not like my husband, I suspect.'

The colonel started. 'He was a good soldier, madam.'

Juliana smiled dryly. 'You may be open — give me your opinion. I shall never see you again, nor you me — and anyway, he is probably dead.'

Mcllwaine drew in breath, in the way he had of deferring difficulties. Juliana let him hesitate but she left a silence which needed to be filled. It was a night for closing accounts. Eventually he admitted: 'I did not like Lovell after Lichfield.'

'That was a siege Prince Rupert raised — what, two years ago? What happened?'

'Much desecration.' Mcllwaine's brow darkened while Juliana watched him closely. 'When we relieved the town, it was already notorious for the sacrilegious behaviour of the Parliamentary troops who were there before us. Those Roundheads had been merciful to the people, but pitiless to the cathedral. They quartered the priests' copes and surplices, ripping them with swords as if the very vestments were being punished for treason. Destroyed the organ pipes. Stabled their horses in the nave, broke up the floors, shat in the quire. Every day they hunted a cat through the church, whooping as they raised an echo under the high vaulting. They brought a calf to the font, wrapped in linen, and baptised it, giving it a name, to express their scorn of the holy sacrament — '

Juliana interrupted. 'This was not my husband. This was the enemy'

'You asked why I did not like him. Well, this is why: during their violations, the rebels had broken into the crypt. They tore open the ancient bishops' tombs, scattering the holy bones of those good men — and tearing the episcopal rings from their decaying fingers.'

Juliana now saw where the diatribe was heading. 'Orlando wears a great red-stoned ring. He had it off a prisoner.'

'So he says,' snapped Owen Mcllwaine. 'I believe Lovell descended to the crypt himself, and he took that ring from some long-dead bishop's finger.'

Juliana could do nothing but nod gravely.

The conversation had opened sluices. Suddenly Mcllwaine leaned forward earnestly. 'This is a stricken country. You have nothing here. Why don't you come away to Ireland?'

He could not know anything of Juliana's family background (Lovell never spoke of it), but Mcllwaine must have seen enough to realise his wild question would not altogether startle this young woman. To up sticks and escape her troubled life held definite attractions. Juliana had the independence to do it. Her grandmother would have gone in a trice.

Juliana foresaw how it would end. At that moment, she was being offered nothing more than assistance and protection. But she knew enough of men to realise Owen Mcllwaine had always until now had Nerissa to share his life; he would be unable to exist alone. He was a man in loss, already fumbling for simple solutions. If Juliana went to Ireland, it would eventually seem natural to him that she, Nerissa's friend, would take Nerissa's place. For Owen it would be a happy resolution.

For Juliana, it had a bad taste even while it was just an idea. She might have married Orlando Lovell, yet she was fastidious. Do I think too much of myself? she wondered. Or just too little of men?.. This was war. She felt that social civilities were breaking down; she guessed at worse to come.

She thanked the colonel sweetly and said she had to stay in Oxford until her child was born. Before objections could be made, she added that Oxford was where Lovell would come to find her. She must remain here until she heard firm news. "Whatever you think, I married him. It was my choice. He is my man, just as you were Nerissa's. He is the father of my children. Even if he is dead, when my children one day ask me about him, I must be able to tell them how he fared. Indeed, I must know it myself

'He does not deserve you,' said Owen. 'Though as my dearest Nerissa would say — what man is there alive who deserves the woman who puts up with him?'

They had spent their memories of Nerissa, however. The night was over. Next morning Mcllwaine took his leave, Grania riding on a pack-horse behind him. Men had appeared from nowhere to join him. A small party set off towards Wales, which had always been hot in support of the King. The colonel had once hoped to go north-west, if the roads were clear, and try to reach Holyhead where they could take a boat direct across the Irish Sea. Now it was thought too dangerous, so they were riding into South Wales and somehow onwards from there.

Juliana waved them off. She went indoors before the clatter of hooves had vanished, closing the door on a silent house. As soon as she was alone she remembered the sword Orlando had once given her to protect herself. She hated it and could have passed it on to the colonel to hang on his empty baldric. But she had lost her chance and was stuck with it. The weapon must remain under her mattress, where Orlando had insisted on placing it when they first came to St Aldate's.

Shortly she would break down in grief for Nerissa. After that, she must try to plan ahead.

For the time being she would only be weeping for her friend. She had no other sense of bereavement. She did not suppose for a moment that Orlando Lovell, her cavalier husband, had died at Naseby.

That would have been too easy.