Cromwell’s Blessing. Peter Ransley

horse would have been lost in the warren of streets round Leadenhall Market.

      ‘My friend’s horse, I believe,’ Richard said.

      One of the cutpurses put his hand on his dagger. The other, looking into Richard’s cold eyes, at odds with his pleasant voice, had more sense. ‘We were only holding it for the gentleman,’ he whined.

      ‘That’ll be a groat,’ said the man with a dagger sullenly.

      Two constables were pushing their way through the crowd. Richard drew out a handful of coins and flung them in the air. The cutpurses, half the crowd and one of the constables dived after the rolling coins.

      Richard grinned as I helped him on the back of my horse. ‘They’ll hang the devil, but take his money.’

      The alley was so narrow and twisting we could barely squeeze through. I reined in the horse. Silhouetted at the end were three men. They were not constables who would run after a few coins. Nor did they have on the uniform of the City Trained Band. They were armed and had the tense, edgy watchfulness of people hunting, wearing the buff army jerkin I had worn for so long, and their faces were as tough and seasoned as the leather from which it was made. They were Cromwell’s men. Their voices echoed down the alley.

      ‘That’s him.’

      ‘Sure?’

      ‘Positive.’

      I glanced back. Richard had changed. Five years had lined his face, pouching his eyes and cutting deeper grooves into the corners of his mouth. It was not just the absence of a beard and fine clothes that made him unrecognisable. It was the absence of arrogance. Even the aquiline Stonehouse nose seemed to lose its prominence in this exiled, hunted face. But when he drew his sword I recognised him well enough. I recognised the look in his eyes, sharp and cold. This was the face of the man who had tried to kill me.

      ‘Drop your sword,’ shouted one of the soldiers.

      The click of the dog lock on the man’s pistol echoed down the alley. Richard kicked savagely at my horse and it leapt forward. There was a blinding, echoing flash and a stink of sulphur. For a moment I could neither see nor hear. The horse plunged. I lost the reins, then grabbed them again. Richard’s fingers dug into me, half-slewing round my jerkin as he scrabbled to cling on. I ducked as the empty pistol was thrown at me and saw another soldier taking aim. We were only just emerging from the alley, a perfect target. The pistol grew very large, then jerked upwards, firing harmlessly in the air as Richard’s sword went through the soldier.

       9

      Partly because the bolting horse took us in that direction, and partly because, when I had her under control, I wanted a place where few questions would be asked, I rode through the back streets to The Pot, where I used to drink as an apprentice. Neither of us spoke. It was that time in the afternoon when people have just eaten, and are reluctant to get up from the table or the fireside. The stable yard was empty. Not even a dog appeared.

      He slid from the horse first, holding up his hand for the reins. I did not give them to him, nor look at him.

      ‘He would have killed you,’ he said.

      I could scarcely get the words out. ‘Only because you wouldn’t stop!’

      He spread out his hands. He looked far more vulnerable than I remembered. ‘You would have given me up.’

      ‘Yes. Yes. I would,’ I shouted.

      There was no sign of a stable boy. While I tethered the horse, Richard drifted aimlessly over to a neglected bowling alley at the corner of the yard. I remembered once losing my boots in a bet there. The Presbyterians, who condemned gambling, had closed it, along with shutting down the theatres. The wooden box with the bowls and jack had been broken into. Richard tossed the jack on to the green. It bumped through the overgrown grass to rest against a stone. He half-knelt and sent a bowl after it, curving it to knock away the stone and rest against the jack. He tossed a bowl to me. Dazed by what had happened, and the incongruity of the green, I flung the bowl down. It bounced crazily, before finishing up in the ditch. Richard pursed his lips and shook his head. In a burst of irritation I seized another bowl, adjusting the bias so it swung in, knocking away his bowl and rolling back nearer to the jack.

      He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not bad.’ He picked up another bowl. ‘I shall never get one like it,’ he said. ‘My sword, I mean. The balance was perfect. It was made in Bologna by Fabris himself –’

      Suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened, I knocked the bowl from his hand. ‘You killed him. Cromwell’s soldier. You killed him. I work for Cromwell. Worked. Wanted to –’

      The words choked in my throat. All my hopes, all my ambitions, my future had disappeared with that one thrust of his sword.

      ‘No one would have recognised you. Not in that dark alley. The confusion.’

      I became incoherent, one word jamming into another. ‘They know who you are. You left your sword in him. They’ll work out I was with you. You killed him. You –’

      He put out a hand in a comforting, reassuring gesture. ‘He was one of the rabble, Tom.’

      I grabbed him by the doublet, tearing his collar, and drove him across the yard against the stable door. It was not just the speed of my attack that shocked him. Five years of war, including a period in the infantry, had given me a ferocity in hand-to-hand combat that he could not match. He was half the man without his sword. I was at the height of my strength, while he was in decline. I saw the realisation of this in his face, and the fear in his eyes when he found he could not release my grip as I held him with one hand and reached for my knife.

      I brought back the knife. ‘I am one of the rabble!’

      ‘Behind you,’ Richard said frantically.

      I almost laughed at him thinking I would fall for that one but, to be sure, kneed him in the groin and glanced round. A stable boy, knuckling his eyes, straw still sticking to his hair from where he had been sleeping, was gazing at us open-mouthed. When I had lived on coins given to me by gentlemen, a penny would buy a good loaf and my silence. Now it was nearer twopence. I held out sixpence.

      ‘You heard nothing.’

      His eyes bulged. He cupped his hand round his ear. ‘What, sir? I bin deaf as a post since birth, sir.’

      The coin disappeared into his pocket. Whistling, he took the horse to water. I pushed my dagger back into its scabbard, went to the pump and sluiced water over my face.

      Slowly, painfully, Richard straightened himself up. His right cheek was streaked with blood. ‘You fight like one of the rabble.’

      I pumped water over my handkerchief and walked across the yard towards him. Stone chips from the wall had scoured his cheek. One was still embedded in his lip. In the stable the boy murmured to the horse as he rubbed her down. Richard kept his eye on my dagger as I approached, and jumped as I held out the dripping handkerchief. He hesitated before taking, it, then wiped his face, watching me all the time, wincing as he dislodged the stone fragment from his lip.

      By some silent agreement, we said nothing more as we walked through the yard. Richard went into the inn first and I followed close at his heels, afraid he might make a bolt for it.

      The Pot was now patronised by a mixture of market traders, scriveners and pamphleteers who traded gossip over lamb pies at tables shut off from one another by high wooden stalls. It was as gloomy as night. What little light crept through the narrow windows was snuffed out by the smoke from ill-swept chimneys.

      We found a table cluttered with dirty plates and I bought sack for him and a small beer for myself. He looked disparagingly at the beer.

      ‘Keeping your wits about you?’

      I said nothing. Under the banter, when he