Chapter 27
“Four weeks, Alex,” Julie Mackay said, “How have you not gone nuts? Also, the smell. Oh! Tom Stone sent some incense sticks, they should help. A bit.”
Lennox could see her point. The Tolbooth was none of your fancy residences, but with the Mackay money and a daily visit from the servants, Colonel Alexander’s cell was comfortable enough. He had books, and good food brought him from the kitchens, and coal and lamp-oil for the nights. None of this did much for the stench; the chamber pots were emptied into a hole at the bottom of one of the stairwells. In theory they drained. In practice, they…fermented. “You’ve nae stirred fra’ this room?”
“Oh, I’ve a wander about the corridors when I’ve a mind,” Alex said, shrugging and sinking back down on the chair he’d been brought the day he’d arrived here. Julie sank down in his lap, a heartwarming sight. “But aye, bored. Black, mortal bored, Major Andrew, old friend. What brings ye t’ visit me in durance vile?”
“Well, I had a wee chat with Montrose and Campbell, as your father suggested, and as Lady Julie was minded to visit I felt I should mak’ ma report in person.”
“Och, well, have a seat. Is Jamie still a pompous wee arse?”
Lennox grinned. “I didn’t speak to him enough to ken, mind, but yon arse is in a crack o’ Charles Stuart’s making, if I’m any judge. And Campbell’s no help to him. The man said barely a word, but he was hardly affronted t’ see me tell Montrose I’d have a bone tae pick wi’ him, me and a muckle o’ veterans besides, and be damned tae his Episcopalian master.”
Alexander whooped with laughter. “Tell me ye gave the man a ringing speech o’ religious liberty, Andrew? Tell me ye did that!”
“Don’t tease, Alex,” Julie said, swatting her husband lightly, “what he did was heroic.”
“Bloody daft, more like, hen,” Lennox said, “It’s no’ like they couldn’t have elected a new pope, and here I am, a presbyterian wi’ a papal knighthood? That man Mazarini, he has a nasty sense o’ humor. And aye, I ought have spoke o’ freedom o’ conscience, but Campbell put me off my stroke by reminding me of that bloody knighthood. But it happens I gave yon laddies all the message they needed regarding yourself. Are ye sure ye’d rather bide here?”
“I’m sure,” Alex said, “the plan is a good one. Or, rather, it’s the best we’re like to get. Julie, did that fool of a lawyer get any further with bail for me?”
“No,” she said, “he’s been pestering every judge he can get his hands on and none of them want to hear in court about letting you out since you’ve a home in the USE and we’re in the middle of sailing season. Which is the reason they’re giving, that and your dad’s too old to be a reliable cautioner for your bail, but there’s this sense Mr. Home is getting that all of the judges are waiting to see what Montrose does, but they also don’t want to piss off anyone else which is why they won’t have it in court. Oh, their excuse is that there are, like six courts with jurisdiction in your case and they’re all saying it’s one of the others that’s really supposed to handle your case. Which is why Andrew and me went to shoot at Montrose today.”
Alex glared at her.
“She’s twittin’ ye, Colonel,” Lennox said, chuckling as he spoke. “Just a wee show o’ her shooting, no’ a hair on anyone’s head harmed. After I’d told them what was to happen, in every sense. Your father and I had words on how to do it. And we played a few tricks to make me look by far the better soldier than any other man there.”
“You still were,” Julie said, “One of those idiots nearly trod on me, and how they missed you up there I’ve still no idea. Or how they thought Oliver was Andrew, they don’t even look slightly alike.”
“Not everyone’s got your eyes, love.”
“Aye, at a mile one man in a green coat looks much like another. And for all Mister Cromwell’s a head taller than me, he can ride. Darryl, bless the lad, is better than the sack o’ shite he used tae be in the saddle, but nobody would take him for a horse-soldier of any kind. And wi’ me startin’ up like one o’ the wee folk like that, I thought me they’d not be looking for the wee details o’ the story we were telling them.”
“Anyway, Andrew says Montrose was impressed, and Campbell too. And your dad had the full report and he’s hopeful of making a big spectacle of your trial, so big they let you go rather than actually let it go ahead. And we finally got word back from Magdeburg, they’re sending through a bunch of future history for us to spread around. Broadsides to print, that kind of thing. Your dad’s after making a real political stink and get Montrose so busy trying to shut him up quietly there’s no hope of him getting away with anything else.”
“And the kirk? The bishops?”
“Montrose’s problem, for now. Oliver went over the stuff we already had, and he thinks with Laud out of the country on the lam the chances of the king trying to press his luck here in Scotland are pretty thin. Your dad’s got some sort of thing going on with our clan chief and some other Scots guys back home, so he’s trying to spin this as the returning veterans being guardians of the covenant and Scotland’s liberty. There’s more details than that, but he’s the expert, not me. I can sort of understand it, but I think politics around here is something you’ve got to grow up with to understand. It’s a leetle more complicated than democrat and republican. Bit more like high-school politics, with all the he-said she-said bullshit.”
Alex grinned at her. “Only in this version the cheerleader’s got a gun?”
“And a husband with a sword, sure,” she grinned back. “And a dad who convinces us all not to come out shooting, when the laws turn up to arrest him. Although I’d’ve taken more convincing if Alexi hadn’t just gone down to sleep.”
“Aye, well, let’s no’ be thinkin’ o’ getting’ the wee girl shot at,” Lennox put in. “The baron’s a guid heid on him for that, now.”
Alex and Julie both grimaced. “I get it,” Julie said, “but using Alex as a pawn for this game he’s playing is, well…”
She waved the hand that wasn’t draped around her husband, contriving to take in the whole grim stone pile of the Tolbooth, the whole legal system it stood for, and the politics that were driving it.
“Aye, it’s cold,” Alex said, “but it’s no’ a bad move for all that. And I’m no sacrifice, mind. Boredom’s the worst of it, and the worst I’ll endure. The king had trouble enough with the Petition of Right in England. He’ll not be after making more trouble over imprisonments here. Did I mention Finnegan came to visit yesterday? He was trying to say he’d withdraw his case if I gave up Mister Cromwell. I told him to get a warrant to arrest Cromwell and find him himself, if he cared to arrest a second man for nothing, and I’d see him in court to make a fool of him there. I don’t think he was hoping for much, myself, but he brought witnesses. I think he was hoping I’d say something seditious.”
“The king’s got more than he had over the Petition o’ Right,” Lennox observed. He’d had a fair education in the matter from Cromwell, who’d not been personally involved but had known men who’d been in it up to their elbows. The change from only five years ago, when the arbitrary imprisonment of five prominent knights had ended in court proceedings, was stark. Now, a matter of imprisonment might go to court, but a visit from a troop of mercenaries made sure it never came away again. At least in England. Things seemed to be better balanced between king and subjects in Scotland.
Darryl McCarthy had joked about the English not spending near the same money on the Scots and Irish as they did on themselves, and the fact that the king was a Scotsman born in Scotland only made the jest the darker. The result was that Montrose’s mission to keep Scotland quiet was both easier and harder. Easier, as the heavy hand that had the English gentry plotting wasn’t laid on the Scots nobility and gentry; harder, because even without that heavy hand there was more than enough to have them plotting in any event. Lennox himself was getting involved, and while he was no experienced hand in matters political, if a king had even the sons of the peasantry scheming, he wasn’t doing so well.
Colonel Mackay seemed to agree. “Aye, but there was a hope of a settlement. Since His Majesty started out with the present business by denying the Petition of Right, nobody but a fool would think this can end without bloodshed. We saw that back in England. Without naming names where we might be overheard, we met a fellow who needed very little convincing to begin to scheme, and I don’t doubt that every fellow he’s been in touch with since was as ready for the touch as he was. Were I a wagering fellow I’d bet that some of them were already making ready with arms and thinking of who they might muster in their cause. As our American friends would put it, that camel was well loaded already and His Majesty has been piling straw after straw on the beast.”
“True,” Julie put in, “and your dad said to pass on that you’ll have an advocate in to see you in the next day or two. Meantime, I don’t believe I shot all the bottles of liquor Andrew had with him today?”
“Are you sure, love? You’ll be exposed to a great deal of danger.”
Gayle chuckled. “As if I haven’t been already! Yes, Oliver, I’m sure.”
She levered herself up on one elbow and gazed down at him. Gayle was a busty woman and, nude as she was, the motions of the various body parts involved distracted Cromwell.
Not for long, though. First, because the matter was serious. Second, because he was a serious man by nature. Third, because he was also a sated man at the moment. It had been a very pleasant afternoon.
And finally because Gayle slapped him playfully on the head. “Pay attention, you!”
When his eyes came back to hers she smiled and said: “I’ve spent hours and hours thinking about it, Oliver. I started thinking about it while we were still in the Tower and our only contact was by radio. I hadn’t even met you in person yet.”
She broke off long enough to bring herself to an upright sitting position, her back against the wall next to the bed. “I not only had to think about it the way any woman will about a man she’s considering getting married to, but about the fact that the man involved was Oliver Fucking Cromwell.”
He made a face.
“And if you say a word about the Profane Swearing Act—”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Wasn’t even thinking about it. It’s just…”
He sat up himself. “I don’t ever think of myself as ‘Oliver Cromwell.’ I think of myself as the same man I always was. Not”—he waved his hand—“some historical figure who belongs in a painting or a book.”
“Yeah, I understand. But it’s not a personal thing, Oliver. I don’t think of you as anything other than the man I’ve come to love. The real man, if you will. But even if you wanted to ignore history, history isn’t going to ignore you. For better or worse, you’re Oliver Cromwell.”
He got a crooked little smile on his face. “And here I thought you gave predestination short shrift.”
“It’s got nothing to do with theology. It’s just a fact that unless you change your name and go into hiding—plastic surgery would be a help too, and I’ll explain what that is some other time—people will have expectations about you. Good or bad, they will. When that asshole king of yours had you thrown into the Tower, he confirmed it for everybody in Britain. This is Oliver Cromwell. Yeah, that’s right, the Oliver Cromwell. He not only put a price on your head, he made you famous ahead of time, so to speak. Which means you’ll be drawing admirers and would-be followers as well as bounty hunters. And you know as well as I do that you’ll accept their allegiance. Because the fact is that you are Oliver Cromwell and you have every intention of repaying Charles Stuart in kind.”
Again, he grimaced. “It’s not a matter of vengeance, love. Well—a bit, I suppose. Mostly, I have simply become convinced that England needs a new political arrangement. I’m not even sure what I think it should be, yet. Perhaps a republic. Perhaps a constitutional monarchy. But if it’s to be the latter, it’ll have to be one without that man on the throne.”
He planted his arms on his knees and laced his hands together. “I’d settle for him in prison, however. Or even in exile as long as he minds his manners. I don’t insist that his head be removed, richly as he deserves it.”
She laughed softly and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Like I said. Oliver Fucking Cromwell. Yes, I will marry you and share your fate, whatever it winds up being.”
“And I, yours,” he said.