A Far Horizon Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Interlude

  Corpses Everywhere

  Turning Points

  Strange Bedfellows

  Soul Sickness

  The Fickle Tides of War

  Longings

  Abandoned

  Uneasy Allies

  Unexpected Visitors

  Proof of Love

  Arrivals and Departures

  Bloody Persecution

  The Power of Words

  Ties That Bind

  A Declaration of Intent

  Death Comes for the Archbishop

  Dreams and Endeavors

  A Time to Mourn

  Historical Note: Influences and Outcomes

  Historical Sources

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  The Broken Kingdom Series

  THE QUEEN’S PROMISE *

  A FAR HORIZON *

  Illuminator Series

  THE ILLUMINATOR

  THE MERCY SELLER

  Novels

  THE HERETIC’S WIFE

  * available from Severn House

  A FAR HORIZON

  Broken Kingdom Volume II

  Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  First published in the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Rickman Vantrease.

  The right of Brenda Rickman Vantrease to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8840-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-966-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0176-8 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  This is what the King who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots … to plow his ground and reap his harvests … to make weapons of war. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks … He will take the best of your fields … and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials … Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use … [Y]ourselves will become his slaves.

  Excerpted from I Samuel 8:10–18. The Prophet answers Israel’s request for a king to rule over them in place of judges.

  INTERLUDE

  Summer 1643

  All of England simmered. In the halls of Parliament, tempers flared. Quarrelsome voices echoed off the whitewashed walls in the once hallowed St Stephen’s Chapel as members of the Commons disputed. Some argued for making peace with the King by withdrawing their demands, while others – spurred by John Pym’s fiery rhetoric – pumped their fists, shouting they had gone too far to turn back now. To acquiesce would surely return an emboldened tyrant to the throne along with his Catholic consort. It would mean a bloodbath for all who had dared oppose him, they argued.

  In August, wearing white ribbons in their hair and armed with bricks to beat against committee-room doors, women marched on Westminster, demanding an end to the war. Some news books called them Southwark whores, bought by members of the emerging ‘Peace Party.’ One lone news book, from an independent printer on Fleet Street, suggested that perhaps they were simply the wives of laborers and merchants, their righteous indignation ignited by deprivation and the war’s cruel reaping of their sons and husbands.

  In the churches, Puritans, Separatists and emboldened Presbyterians pounded pulpits, demanding their God-given rights from the Church of England and their King. Wiping beads of sweat from their faces, their listeners roused themselves in resounding shouts of amen. In the Thames Valley, soldiers loitered in the shade of shriveled shrubs while their officers sought midday shelter in their tents to escape an unrelenting sun. Plotting, planning, spying, each side waited for the enemy camp to make a move. In the Midlands, the low hum of insects in dry pastures and hedgerows was interrupted only by occasional gunfire, brief skirmishes, unrecorded and unnoticed except for the occasional body rotting in a ditch. In the North, no breeze stirred as the regiments of Cromwell’s Eastern Association trained until the general’s dragoons fell like flies.

  But at Oxford, the Queen’s spirits remained buoyant. Since Henrietta Maria’s joyous return from her year-long mission on the Continent, Charles was often away, but she was too busy trying to make a temporary court at Merton College to miss him overmuch. Inigo Jones helped her with the renovations, while William Davenant evaded the naval blockade to procure the needed furnishings and fine fabrics. On this late summer day, as she inspected with delight the silk hangings for the King’s bed, she reminded herself of Charles’s admonition against extravagance and his assurance that the Oxford quarters were temporary. But it was the King’s bed and, for now, the royal bedchamber. With the infusion of resources she had brought back from the Continent, the treasury could surely afford a suitable bed for the King. And if Charles was right, and they were able to return to Whitehall soon, Inigo would find a place for this fine Italian silk.

  In the meantime, when the King was away with his troops or closeted with his advisors, Henry Jermyn kept the Queen safe and provided merry company. If life was not perfect, it would be better soon. The King would secure his royal prerogative, Parliament would learn its proper place, and, in the meantime, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, in cooperation with Chancellor Hyde, had arranged a ‘visit,’ from Princess Elizabeth and little Prince Henry. The chancellor said it might not be a long visit because Parliament’s consent was not given, which fact the Queen did not accept at all. She would die before she allowed her children to fall into Parliament’s clutches a second time. Never again would Henrietta Maria leave her children to somebody else’s protection. Not even their father’s.

  At Syon House, a few miles west of London, Lucy Hay was busy planning how best to arrange a way to carve out for herself an after-the-war strategy. Her lover and protector, Parliament leader John Pym, would not be pleased if he heard that she had arranged – without permission or Parliament’s oversight – for the royal children to visit the Queen, but he was apparently too busy with the war to care about either t
hem or Lucy. Elizabeth and Henry could be away a month or more before anybody ever thought to check on them, and would be back before anyone in Parliament would know they had ever left. If she could pull it off, it would be enough to reclaim the Queen’s grace and favor, whatever the outcome of this miserable war.

  Within the city of London listless dogs with ribs showing nosed the gritty cobblestones, seeking moisture and a scrap of bone or gristle, but there was nothing to be found except the flung refuse of emptied chamber pots or filthy dishwater. Outside the city, the dry, dirty air from a summer of so little rain covered every surface, choking the throats of workers breaking hard ground to build the security earthworks. Even news of the fighting seemed to have slowed as England sweltered. In the surrounding countryside, the harvest was poor and the barns empty, boding ill for feeding hungry warriors during the coming winter. Grain dried in the field before it was harvested.

  In Fleet Street, at the sign of the crossed swords, Lord Whittier and his one-armed apprentice printed only news of shortages and the women’s protest and rumors of the Queen’s return. There were also rumblings about Parliament’s negotiations for an alliance with the Scots to take up arms against the King, but no hard news yet, only argument that the printer gleaned from loitering around the corridors of Westminster. James Whittier was growing more and more frustrated and more than the war was gnawing at him.

  In the stifling heat of the Aldersgate schoolroom, John Milton was shorter tempered than usual as he brooded about the beautiful young wife who’d deserted him after only a few weeks of their miserable marriage. At Forest Hill, the home to which his wife had returned, a miasma hovered in the arid pasture. Mary Milton went about her dusty chores and tried to pretend her marriage had never happened. Her mind and body were occupied with helping her family maintain their manor holdings against an infestation of Royalist troops and diminishing resources, both human and material. Caroline Pendleton – her worst fear officially confirmed: that her husband William was indeed a casualty of the war – worried about what the future held in store, not only for herself but for her dearest friend, Milton’s young runaway bride. Her own world turned upside down, Caroline was determined to devise a way to help the Powell family, who had once again offered her refuge.

  It was as if all of England waited for the fall to bring relief, but when the first leaves of autumn fell, they were brown and brittle before they hit the ground. When the cooling weather finally came, it brought more devastation. Fighting resumed in earnest west of Oxford. In September, the King’s forces reoccupied Reading and began the siege of Gloucester. Shortly after, the two armies collided at Newbury. The King’s forces were defeated. Parliament was emboldened.

  But the gods of war are fickle, favoring first one side then another, as though for sport. As the combatants and their families strive and bleed and die, Mars casts his cruel shadow over a kingdom about to break apart. Fortunes disappear. Lives are lost, and others are forever altered in unexpected ways by the never-ending conflict. The shattering of the kingdom has begun in earnest.

  CORPSES EVERYWHERE

  That night we kept the field where the bodies of the dead were stripped. In the morning these were a mortifying object to behold, when the naked bodies of thousands lay upon the ground and not altogether dead …

  Words of Simeon Ash, parliamentarian chaplain, after the Battle of Newbury

  3 October 1643

  It was chilly in the laundry wagon and the ride was bumpy. As the shadows lengthened and the wind stiffened, Caroline was grateful for the warmth of William’s greatcoat and cowhide hat. It was the one he’d worn on the farm in all seasons and it carried the smoky scents of hay and sheep’s wool – and William. She was grateful now for the comfort it gave her, though she had never thought to put on a man’s garment before Jane Whorwood suggested it.

  ‘You will attract less attention if you are dressed as a man,’ she’d said. ‘I will give you a document to get you past the London sentries. If you should be questioned, just say you are the relief driver for the supply wagon. They will probably wave you through without even asking. They are used to our laundry deliveries and Jack is my regular driver for the Berkshire route. Jack will back you up.’

  It had not been easy to reconcile the canniness and the courage of this savvy young woman with the innocent manner, blonde coiffure, and smiling blue eyes she also possessed. Mistress Jane Whorwood had from time to time stopped to purchase Ann’s fine ale and, being an ardent Royalist and a youngish lady of jolly disposition, was a favorite of Justice Powell. Though they’d had no ale to sell and not much to drink, had none for weeks, the mistress of Holton Manor’s neighborly visit to Forest Hill proved timely. It was the very day after Caroline, discovering how desperate things really were at Forest Hill, had naively offered a plan for temporary relief.

  When Jane Whorwood had politely asked how they were faring under the occupation, Squire Powell’s dire response had been more detailed than such a polite inquiry would usually elicit. Somewhat taken aback, the lady had stuttered out an expression of sympathy and asked if she could do anything to help. But before he could specify exactly how, she had hastened to say that sadly her funds were also depreciated by the war. It was a struggle to keep her business going, what with her contributions to the treasury and the bribes she had to pay to all the guards at all the checkpoints surrounding London – she had stopped here to draw a breath – but if she could help in any other way, anything, just ask. She would of course do whatever she could for so loyal a supporter of their dear King Charles, that most excellent of sovereigns. Caroline had noticed how her expression softened when she said the King’s name, her eyes gleaming with the kind of religious devotion usually reserved for saints. Real saints – not the generic term with which the Puritans styled themselves.

  Now, on her way to London and huddled in between Jane Whorwood’s barrels of soap and her own personal possessions, Caroline pulled the greatcoat around her and withdrew into it, as though to find shelter from the chill of encroaching evening shadows. She inhaled, seeking comfort from the lingering essence of her late husband, but the scent had grown fainter, like her memory of William. She could no longer summon his face at will nor his voice, though it sometimes came to her at odd times, unexpected and heart-stopping, an ambush of crushing loss. She no longer waited, anticipating his sudden appearance or his call from another room, but sometimes still she saw a shadow that startled her. William, is that you? she had even called out once, thinking she had heard his familiar footfall. It was not the only time she had to remind herself that he was never coming home. A letter of condolence from the garrison certified that awful truth.

  The wagon stopped, and the driver, appearing at the back of the wagon, nodded his head in the direction of a brush thicket a few yards away. ‘Looks like a safe enough place to stop,’ he said, his tone low and edged with embarrassment. ‘Thou might want to stretch thy legs to make thyself comfortable. I’ll keep an ear for trouble. Been a few outbreaks of heavy fighting around here lately, leftover skirmishes ever since Essex turned back the King’s forces at Newbury. We won’t stop again before Reading. Safer there than on the road since the Roundheads left and our side is occupying the town.’

  Caroline did not want to stretch her legs. She wanted to hunch behind the piles of linen with her pistol in her hands, but she needed relief too. She waited until he was out of view and squatted on the ground with the wagon between her and the brush screen. No more privacy than an animal, she thought, as she gathered up the edge of the long coat with one hand, though God knew she should be used to such by now. Forest Hill had become so overrun with soldiers, peeking and poking into every corner, that a woman could scarcely avail herself of any modesty. But Jack was more considerate than the soldiers she’d left behind. He lingered longer than she thought he probably needed to and, climbing back into the driver’s seat, he acknowledged with the briefest glance that she had returned from ‘making herself comfortable.’


  They had not gone very far when, through the open end of the wagon, they encountered, lying in the ditch, what was left of the first dead thing. Even the sharp odor of lye and ash from the barrels could not disguise the smell of decay. She buried her nose in the crook of her elbow. Just a bulky mess of blood and bone. No discernible head. An animal? The cart slowed to a halt as the driver pulled his neckerchief up over his nose and lit a coach lamp against the quickening twilight. A match flared. The wick smoked and spit a niggardly flame. Prompted by Jack’s whip, the horses resumed their tired gait. Caroline stood up to risk a look but held onto the rails for support. The wind had stilled. A heavy silence hovered.

  Her eyes adjusted slowly to the scene unfolding in the field. At first glance, denial stifled what reason would not acknowledge. But all too abruptly the images in the field ghosted to reality, revealing a tableau so nightmarish that it must be real because her imagination was incapable of conjuring such. Scattered like broken branches after a storm, the bodies of men sprawled across the field, a score or more in various stages of undress, some stripped to the waist, most with bare feet, some altogether naked. At the near edge of the field, three of the bodies encircled the ashen remains of a campfire. One corpse sat upright, nothing where his head should be, a tin pot resting in his slack grip.

  Thank God, she could not see the faces of the men – if they still had faces.

  A broad ribbon of darkness folded across the purple and orange horizon, sailing like some great angel of death coming to collect the souls of the dead. With one broad swirl the vision spread its mighty wings, swooped downward and, breaking into a host of chattering jackdaws and rooks, claimed the field. At the whirring of the feasting birds, Caroline covered her eyes, swallowed the gall rising in her throat, and slid back down to the wagon floor. Her ankle scraped the iron band of a barrel, but she felt nothing.