Cromwell’s Blessing. Peter Ransley

mistook me for the new one.’

      I went very still, pushing my glass away and gripping the edge of the table to control myself as he went on.

      ‘Chatted away. Fellow has spirit. Good on a horse. Got on famously –’

      He saw my expression. I kept my voice low only with an effort. ‘Touch my son and I will have you in the Tower, whatever happens to me. I should do so now. I’m a fool to talk to you.’

      ‘Not so much a fool as me.’ His tone was as savage as a moment before it had been affable. ‘You’re supposed to be so clever, but you don’t understand, do you?’

      ‘I understand when someone is spying on me.’

      ‘Spying? The boy is my grandson. Do you think I’d harm him?’

      That he could say that with a straight face took my breath away. ‘You tried to kill me.’

      ‘That was different.’

      ‘How different?

      ‘I don’t know. Different. I was young. Thought I knew everything. Now I think I know nothing, except that one day the King will have his own again. That’s all that matters. All I hang on to. You’re like that damn priest. Cornering me like a fox.’ His voice took on a new edge of bitterness. ‘All right. I can understand why you think I will harm your son. But I would be a damn fool to do so. I know my father thinks the sun shines out of his little arse.’

      He had a knack of saying something that was reassuring and disturbing at the same time. ‘Does Lord Stonehouse know you’re here?’

      ‘No! For God’s sake don’t tell him. He risked everything to get me out of the country years ago. I don’t want to get the old sod in any more trouble.’

      In spite of their turbulent relationship, and their violently opposed views, Richard seemed to genuinely care for his father. Like the aquiline Stonehouse nose, some of that ambiguity of feeling seemed to have been transmitted to Richard and me. We stared across the table at one another like two fighters who no longer have the energy to aim a blow, but are too apprehensive to turn their backs. Unless he was a very good actor, the effort he had made to write the letter struck me as true. I could not reject him. I could not. Apart from anything else, he had killed the soldier and, whether or not I had been identified, he could implicate me.

      He picked up his glass and put it down untasted. ‘Can we work together?’

      He read the suspicion that leapt into my face and spoke with a passion I had not suspected. He was seeing the King. Knew what was in the Queen’s mind. I knew what was in Cromwell’s. In however small a way we could influence what was put on the table, bring people closer together, just as his letter had brought us together. After all, we were both Stonehouses.

      I felt the scar that one of his men had left on my cheek. ‘You think I can trust you?’

      ‘As much as I trust you,’ he said.

      ‘Touché,’ I muttered.

      My heart suddenly began to pound. It was what was needed – talking, instead of endless fighting. What was there to lose? If he was sincere, I might have a hand, however small, in influencing the negotiations between the King and Cromwell. If he was not, it was a chance to get my hand on those letters.

      I began talking. Cautiously – not giving away the weaknesses of the New Model, but telling him about those regiments solid for Cromwell, so the King would not have any illusions about the forces against him. I never knew what he might have told me in exchange for, in a patch of light, I glimpsed an agitated face which disappeared into the shadows like the will ’o the wisps on the marsh in my childhood. Jane, my housekeeper? In an alehouse? I believed I had drunk too much, or she was a trick of the light, but then I saw her again, weaving in and out of the chattering, laughing drinkers, who cursed when their drinks were jostled. I called her and she ran towards me.

      ‘Master. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. It’s Liz, little Liz.’

       10

      Jane kept saying there was no time, no time. She had a Hackney outside and I scrambled into it with her, leaving Richard at The Pot. We travelled down Fleet Street, and were in Newgate before I pieced together what had happened. Jane told me Anne had called Dr Latchford when Liz’s breathing had become more and more laboured. What little milk Liz took from the wet-nurse, she vomited up. Before the doctor arrived the baby was in such distress that Anne put her on her breast even though she could not suckle. This seemed to revive her, but the doctor said he could do nothing more for her and advised Anne to send for the minister to baptise her.

      ‘Mr Tooley baptised her?’

      ‘No, no. Mr Tooley has gone.’

      ‘Gone?’

      ‘Lost his living. George broke into a cupboard, found his old surplice, prayer books and pictures, and accused him of practising the old religion.’

      A chill ran through me. I was sure I had locked everything back in the cupboard. Then I thought of the old prayer book I had taken out to read. Had I put it back? I could not remember.

      ‘What is going to happen to her?’ Jane sobbed. ‘No one to baptise her. What will happen to her poor little soul?’

      ‘Where is she? Where are we going?’

      ‘Anne took her to your old church to find the new minister. I tried to tell her Liz was too ill, but she is half crazy. She got it in her head she must have Liz baptised, and in that church.’

      It was almost dark when we got to the church. No candles were lit. I could just pick out the figures of a small congregation in the gloom. I stumbled a few steps before I picked out Anne at the font. She was as still as the stone it was carved from. She neither acknowledged me nor spoke. Her whole being was concentrated on the baby, folded in swaddling clothes at her breast.

      ‘Is she …?’

      Anne did not answer. The only movement came from the rise and fall of her breast. The bundle stirred and the smallest, driest cough echoed round the dank church. Anne kissed her and rocked her gently. All the love she had never given Liz after the disappointment of her not being a boy was lavished on her now. Luke ran to me. I took him by the hand, motioned him to be quiet, and asked Jane what was happening.

      ‘The minister has been sent for,’ Jane whispered.

      ‘Mr Tooley?’

      ‘The new Presbyterian minister, Samuel Burke.’

      Anne shivered, it seemed as much from the name as from the cold seeping into her from the damp stones. Her shawl had slipped from her shoulders and I wrapped it round her, alarmed at her ghost-like pallor.

      ‘Is there nowhere warmer you can wait?’ I asked. She did not answer me. ‘Anne?’

      ‘She will not leave the font,’ Jane said.

      I begged Anne to let me take her somewhere warm. She turned to me for the first time, as if she was she was staring at a stranger. Luke seemed to appear from nowhere and went to tug at his mother’s skirts. I snatched him up in my arms. He struggled for a moment, protesting, then twisted round to gaze down at his sister with black, darting eyes, deep-set aside the sharp aquiline crescent of the Stonehouse nose. He rammed a thumb in his mouth. He had sensed from the moment he was born he was special, with the undivided love from Anne and the visits and presents from Lord Stonehouse. His manner suggested he could not understand why this insignificant scrap, who had been nothing but a nuisance from the moment she arrived, was getting all the attention.

      ‘She will go to hell if she is not baptised,’ he said, with a mixture of awe and satisfaction.

      Anne rounded on him furiously. ‘Go to your place!’

      Luke