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John watched as the chap rapped on the stout wood door and was immediately bidden enter. Not wishing to miss the introductions, John yanked Phyll and Michael through the thick stone wall into the inner chamber, where he noticed that three tallow candles in a branching holder had been l
it during their absence. There was something feverish about the tilting shadows as they lurched across the bare white plaster walls and lunged at the complaining black beams that held up the ceiling. Cromwell was still seated where they’d left him on the far side of the table, closing the front cover of his journal now and looking up without expression as the young man entered.
An approximation of a smile twitched briefly into being upon Cromwell’s lips and then was gone. Not rising to his feet to meet the newcomer as John might have expected, the new Parliamentary lieutenant-general spoke only the man’s name by way of greeting.
“Henry. It does my heart good to see thee.”
Henry Ireton. With only a little prompting John had placed the long-haired chap, whom he remembered that he had indeed seen previously, or to be more exact would see tomorrow morning, getting wounded and then captured as he led his regiment up the left flank at Naseby Field. The young man nodded courteously to the still-seated Cromwell.
“As it does mine own to see thee, Master Cromwell. My congratulations upon your appointment as lieutenant-general of horse. I was myself promoted as a commissary-general not a week since. It seems that a man may of a sudden rise or fall amidst the boiling waters of our present conflict.”
Ireton’s voice was light, at least contrasted with that of the older man, who clasped his hands together on the table and sat back a little in his chair as he responded.
“By God’s grace, lad. Only by His grace are we raised up, as by His grace shall our opponent be cast down upon the morrow. Praise be, Henry. Praise be unto God.”
In John’s opinion Ireton looked a bit uneasy here, even as he was nodding in agreement with the seated general’s ardent proclamation.
“Yes. Yes, of course. Praise be to God. Do you believe that we shall have the day? The prince may be spurred on by his late victory in Leicester …”
Cromwell waved one fleshy hand dismissively, then laced its fingers with the other, resting on the polished tabletop before him.
“I do not believe that we shall have the day, but rather know it in my bones. It is my destiny that I should win, just as it is King Charlie’s destiny that he should fail. I know it just as surely as I know that Christ hath promised our salvation, as He hath so done with all of His elect. I must ask thee how thou dost doubt God’s providence, that levelleth the cities of the plain, and bringeth plague upon the house of Pharaoh?”
Looking over-warm inside his armour on this summer evening, Ireton tugged at his starched collar as though in a vain attempt to make it looser. Even though the younger man ranked only slightly beneath Cromwell, John could see the deference and nervousness in Ireton’s manner as he struggled for a suitable rejoinder. Phyllis, John and Michael went and squatted on the lower steps of a contorted spiral staircase over in one corner of the room, the better to observe this somehow threatening and yet compelling interview. At last, the bearded man risked a reply.
“Think not that I do doubt the Lord, but only that mine confidence in such predestinations be less sturdy than thine own. Is there not risk that we may be complacent in assurances of our salvation, and in this way be made negligent in our pursuit of faith?”
Now, for the first time, Cromwell curled his meaty lips into a smile that showed his grey teeth and was genuinely dreadful to behold. The midnight marbles of his eyes glittered beneath half-lowered lids.
“Dost thou think me some Antinomian heretic, that sins, and lazes in the sun, secure in his belief that he be saved, no matter whatsoe’er that he be wicked? Though I be convinced that all the times to come are surely writ already, nor do I shirk from my part in bringing them to be. Oh, trust in God by all means, Henry. Trust in God, but do not fail to keep thy powder dry.”
Here Cromwell laughed, a startling bark that rumbled gradually off to nothing, like a thunderclap. Ireton, who’d started visibly at the laugh’s onset, seemed now to be reassured by his superior’s good humour. Smiling forcedly at Cromwell’s oft-repeated joke, Ireton apparently thought it appropriate to venture a restrained jibe of his own.
“Good Master Cromwell, truly do I know thou to be neither Antinomian nor heretic of any stripe. ’Tis but the Ranters, that cry out thy praises in the marketplace, who would make their foretold salvation to a license for debauch.”
As quickly as they’d been dispelled, the dark clouds rolled back in across Cromwell’s broad features. Over on the last step of the spiral staircase, looking in unseen on the exchange, both Michael Warren and Phyll Painter shivered in spontaneous unison.
“Do not concern thyself with Ranters, Henry. When our war is won, then where will be the need for Ranters or their fiery, flying rolls?”
Ireton looked unconvinced.
“Are you so certain of tomorrow’s victory?”
The older man’s face was as still as a carved sphinx.
“Oh, yes. Our men have not been paid for some few weeks. Their bellies grumble, but I have assured them that a win tomorrow will provide a sizeable exchequer from which we may swiftly make remunerations. I have fashioned of myself a sword for God to wield. He shall not be gainsaid. Naseby shall do the trick, thou may be certain, and then afterwards I shall, that is, we shall determine what is to be done about such dross as Ranters, Levellers or Diggers.”
Frowning disconcertedly and narrowing his eyes, Ireton appeared mildly alarmed.
“Surely you would not see such men suppressed, that have fought bravely for our cause? Would it not shame us to take rights from those who campaign only that the rights bestowed by Magna Carta be upheld?”
Here Cromwell laughed again, this time a throaty chuckle that was less loud and less disconcerting than his previous outburst.
“Magna Farta, it might with more truth be called. Why, old King John was under siege some six weeks at the castle down the way before he could be made to sign it. Such conventions are by force of arms alone brought into being, and by force of arms may be revoked, and we shall see what we shall see.”
The senior general’s head, a trundling cannonball, rolled round upon his neck until his leaden eyes were fixed directly upon John. The lanky ghost-boy shrank against the curving staircase wall, convinced for just a second that Cromwell was looking at him before realising that the seated man was merely staring into empty space as he reflected.
“We are come upon a fateful place, which hath oft-times served as a pivot for the swivellings of history. The fortress stood at this hill’s foot was where the sainted Thomas Becket was most treacherously brought to trial for doing God’s will rather than a king’s. Holy crusades were raised up thereabouts, as likewise were our earliest Parliaments. Not half a mile off to the south is the cow-meadow where Henry the Sixth was beaten by the Earl of March in an affray that ended the War of the Roses. Be assured this town, this soil, it hath the matter’s heart within it, and it looks not kindly upon kings and tyrants. If I listen, Ireton, up above the hollow sound that the wind maketh in the chimney-tops, I fancy me to hear the grinding and annihilating mills of God.”
