by A.J. Lyndon
Ned’s sudden, violent death had left no clues as to his wishes for the disposal of his body, nor the settling of his affairs. “Roses,” was his final word as blood gurgled from his mouth.
Robert had paid the sexton to dig a grave in a quiet corner of the Oxford churchyard, bought a shroud and wrapped its woollen folds about the bloated, lifeless flesh. The parson had read in English from the Book of Common Prayer while Robert, the only mourner, bowed his head, praying silently in other, different, words. He took note of the spot so that Ned’s family might visit the anonymous mound. It was May, and Robert heaped a cloud of bluebells from a nearby wood upon the piled earth.
The City of Oxford surrendered to Parliament’s red-coated New Model Army in June. The civil war was over, and Robert was released to resume his bleak and cheerless existence. Now he was writing a letter to Ned’s family. It was not easy informing a father of his son’s death. He stared at the blank sheet of paper as if willing the words to write themselves while the ink dried on the nib and the tallow candle smoked its way down the untrimmed wick. There was a creak from the door and his mother entered silently, her skirts brushing the worn rush matting.
“Robert, why did you not call for a fire? How many hours have you sat like this, my son, growing chilled?”
He lifted his head, the flickering flame throwing the long scar on his cheek into grotesque relief.
“A cold hearth is no hardship to an old soldier like me. You should go to bed, Mother. I too. The candle is almost burned down, and they are too precious to waste now that we must pay Parliament to live on our own estates.”
“Robert, will you not say the rosary with me first?” He kissed her hand and picked up the candlestick.
“Tomorrow, Mother.” He must beg the forgiveness of man before he sought that of God. He must finish the letter.
* * *
Reasons to defer a visit to Ned’s family had dropped away one by one until he stood naked. He had agonised for many weeks until autumn was not far away. He glanced down at the long package strapped to his saddle. It contained Ned’s broadsword, cleaned, oiled, the leather scabbard swathed in fresh linen. The letter he sent had been brief. Coward that he was, instead of unburdening himself, he had confined the words on the single page to the news that Ned was dead at the hands of the enemy and had been buried in Oxford. He expressed his wish of returning the sword. The family would welcome its restoration. The hilt was inlaid with silver and engraved with the arms of the Lyndhurst family but, for all its elegant, deadly beauty, it had not saved Ned.
Robert rode past fishponds, orchards, a dovecote and flower gardens towards Ned’s home. Its stones glowed in the setting sun. A succession of liveried servants admitted him, led away his horse and bore Robert towards the Great Parlour.
“My grandfather remodelled it from an old abbey into a modern gentleman’s house, but it has a ghostly grey monk,” Ned had informed him one night in his rooms at Oxford University. “He likes to creep up on you like this.” He pounced and the two sixteen-year-old students wrestled until Robert, shaking with laughter, admitted defeat.
It was not the last time Ned talked of his home, Moreton Hall, its sprawling grey buildings nestled in a fold of the downs so that the sea was hidden from view.
“Until you climb the hill at its back. On a fine day the water sparkles blue and the sea seems to touch the sky. It is my own stairway to heaven.”
“There are other paths to heaven, other delights,” Robert had joked, lifting his goblet in a toast to his friend. Ned’s thoughtful gaze flickered from Robert’s face to his own goblet, but he said nothing. They gulped their wine and fell to roasting chestnuts before the fire. Snatching a bursting, blackened shell from the embers, Ned singed the sleeve of his crimson silk academic gown.
Robert grabbed the water jug and tossed its contents over the smouldering cloth.
“Have a care, Ned,” he reproached his friend.
“It is spoiled now, and I must buy another,” Ned groused. He tugged it off and bundled it up.
“Your servitor will patch it for you,” Rob suggested.
“Patch it?” Ned laughed. “I may be only a younger son, but my father would not suffer me to be seen in patched attire. Would yours?”
Robert flushed, his dark eyes clouding. “We are friends, Ned are we not?”
“Since we met in the Michaelmas term,” Ned agreed. “Now it is Hilary and the season of Lent approaches. We must take our pleasures before it begins. What has this to do with patching of scorched robes?”
“My father’s estates are encumbered. Last year he spent some weeks in the Fleet prison for debt. Now matters have improved sufficiently for me to come to Oxford, but … ”
“But the sight of a costly robe cast aside grieves you.” Ned turned serious. “You may have it if you wish, Rob, in token of our friendship.” He picked up the shimmering silk, adorned with stains from ale, wine and ink, and thrust it into Robert’s arms.
“It is kind in you, Ned, but I am only a poor knight’s son and it is not fitting,” Robert stuttered, overwhelmed by the gift. He ran his thumb longingly over the gold lace.
“Who may one day rise to be a great man of learning. Take it and wear it. The colour will suit your dark hair and eyes better than my pale ones. If you will not wear it, give it to your sweetheart. Is that not what you meant when you spoke of other delights?”
It was not, but Robert only smiled in reluctant acceptance of the crimson silk. He was wearing it, the burnt threads neatly mended, on the day Ned burst into his rooms when Robert had thought him out hunting.
Ned’s greeting died on his lips. Rising from his knees, Robert stuffed the string of rosary beads into his breeches pocket, but it was too late. Ned had seen them. Robert stumbled to his bed and perched on the edge, hanging his head. The toes of Ned’s Spanish leather shoes appeared in his view.
“Why did you not tell me you were a papist, Rob?” Ned whispered. “Did you fear I would report you as a lawbreaker?”
“Or a traitor, loyal to the church of Rome before King Charles,” Robert flared. “I told you my father had been in prison for debt. He has been fined time after time for his beliefs. And if Parliament has its way, we will lose our lands.” He subsided into a silent heap of misery, already regretting having spoken so openly.
“I will not report you.” Ned’s tone was gentle as he sat next to Robert and clasped his hand. They remained motionless for a few moments, fingers entwined. Then Ned pulled away and stood up.
“And now, my good papist, I returned because the sport was poor today. May I entreat you to come dice with me and some others before the college gates are closed?” His careless smile said that the matter was closed. Robert was relieved, yet he felt an odd sense of disappointment.
* * *
“Master Lush, it is most kind in you to visit us.” Ned’s father was seated in a heavy, wheeled chair, a servant holding the back.
“I am honoured, My Lord.” Robert tugged the shabby hat from his head and bowed. “Here is Ned’s sword. I thought you would wish to have it." Fumbling, he removed the linen wrapper and then handed the weapon to Lord Moreton. The earl placed both hands flat on the scabbard and bowed his head. Seeing his anguish, Robert turned away.
Behind the dining table, positioned to catch the best light from the windows, hung a portrait of Ned’s family. Two boys were formally posed either side of their parents. Ned’s corn-coloured hair hung straight and gleaming; his scarlet silk doublet, richly edged with gold lace and pearl buttons, paraded down the front. The expression in the wide blue eyes was soft and humorous, and his hand rested on the heavy head of a boarhound.
Choked with grief, Robert approached the painting, remembering the cavalry officer in the blood-drenched buff coat who had died in his arms.
“That was my son, Rafe, my heir. Killed at Edgehill.” Lord Moreton had regained his composure. He pointed at the older boy, as dark, both complexion and hair, as Ned was fair. “They say our men ran from the battlefield but not Rafe. Wounded in the neck, the arm, the leg. His lieutenant carried him from the field. And now Edward, too, is gone. It was the Lord’s will.
“Jane, my dear, come and meet Edward’s comrade. May I present my son’s wife to you, Master Lush.” The slight girl who glided into the room clutched her hands protectively over the gentle swell in her silk gown. Robert gaped at her.
“Master Lush, are you quite well?” Lord Moreton enquired. “You have ridden far. Bring meat and drink, make haste,” he barked at a footman.
The girl guided Robert to a cushioned chair and then seated herself some distance away.
“Tell me, Master Lush, how you became acquainted with my son. Were you with him when he died? You were an officer of his regiment?” Lord Moreton resumed once Robert had gulped down a plateful of beef and two glasses of wine. The longing in the father’s eyes belied the calm of his voice.
“We were students together at the university, Sir, My Lord, but we went our separate ways when the war began. I did not know he was wed,” he blurted, glancing sideways at Jane. “I had not seen him since the day he received his commission. Not until we came upon each other quite by chance on the day he … ”
“The Lord was merciful that He provided a friend in my son’s last hours.”
Despite the wine, Robert’s mouth was dry. His bowels were churning and his hands clammy. Faced with the reality of Ned’s home, Ned’s father and Ned’s wife, Robert knew that he would say no more of those last hours. His courage had failed him.
* * *
The day Ned received his commission as a lieutenant, Robert joined him and a group of young men in a private room at a London inn. Ned had not told him of the reason for the invitation. No longer fellow students at the university, Robert learned only what Ned wrote in his occasional letters. The other men, Londoners all, were unknown to Robert. They were friendly enough, but Robert was disappointed in his hope for any private converse with Ned, who was in a festive mood. At his request, Robert had picked up a lute and Ned danced a jig to every tune he played, fast or slow, sad or merry.
“I should leave and seek my lodging, Ned. I have a matter of business for my father at an early hour.” Robert drained his goblet and placed it next to the growing line of empty flagons. Two of Ned’s companions sprawled insensible, their heads on the table.
“What a dull dog you are become, Rob. We have not met in a twelve month and you talk of your lodging. You have spoken barely a dozen words to me all evening. The city gates are long closed. It will wait until the morrow. Only God knows when our paths may cross again.” Ned fished unsteadily in the pocket of his velvet breeches.
“There, brother. Now do you comprehend why I would have you stay a little longer?” He pressed a piece of folded parchment crackling with newness into Robert’s outstretched palm.
“What is this?”
“Read it, Rob.” Puzzled, Robert retired to read its contents by the light of a lamp in one of the sconces. It stated that the Honourable Edward Lyndhurst was commissioned lieutenant in a cavalry regiment. It was signed by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Ned strolled after him, a smile on his lips.
“You are joining the forces of Parliament against the King?” Robert met Ned’s gaze. His eyes burned with excitement and fervour.
“A cavalry regiment, Rob. Will you not make one of our band of brothers?” Ned waved an expansive arm at the half dozen men gathered about the table.
“Are all these men rebels?”
“Rebels? Then I have my answer.” Ned shrugged elegant shoulders and joined the others at the table. Tears in his eyes, Robert threw down the offending commission. How had it come to this that Ned the carefree, Ned the dreamer, was joining forces with the Puritan Parliament in armed uprising against the lawful king? Did he not realise that if Parliament gained the upper hand, they would snuff out the dim, flickering flame that was England’s old faith, and Catholic families like Robert’s with it? He should not remain a moment longer at this treasonous gathering.
Instead of leaving, Robert watched Ned toying with a loose silver button on his doublet, flaxen hair falling across his eyes from beneath the high-crowned hat. Ned was scowling but when he turned his head and saw Robert still standing in the doorway, he smiled.
Robert woke at dawn with a mouth like ditch water and an aching head. Uncurling himself from the nest of snoring bodies on the rush matting, he unbuttoned his breeches, pissed in the empty fireplace and pulled on his boots.
“Are you leaving so early?” Ned yawned, rolling over and relapsing into untroubled sleep. Robert lifted a hand in unseen farewell.
* * *
Four years had spun their tangled dreams since then, with the world turned upside down and Robert also sucked into the giant maw of the war machine devouring England, Wales and Scotland. Officially a lieutenant, he spent his time scouting and gathering intelligence for the royalist army. Until the day when, carrying a forged letter of introduction, he slipped inside a manor house searching for information on a rumoured plot to kidnap the Prince of Wales from his refuge in Jersey. There would have been fewer people about at night, but Robert found it easier to pass through great houses unchallenged during the day, posing as a visiting gentleman on unspecified business. A confident demeanour, together with suitable attire, was all that was required.
“I have news for your master, for his ears alone,” he told the gatekeeper.
“I am seeking your master on private business. I was told I might find him in his study,” he told a hurrying servant.
“He is not in the house, your honour. The study lies that way and if it please you to await him there, I will send word to him that a gentleman,” he paused.
“Of Hampshire,” Robert supplied vaguely.
“Awaits him. Thank you, sir.” The servant bowed and scuttled away.
The study was generally the best place to commence a search. Robert eased open the door, closed it behind him, and began flipping through pages of books. The desk was locked but it yielded to the persuasion of his knife at the expense of some cuts and scratches to the polished walnut. It contained a bundle of papers in different hands. Orders for the levying of troops, returns of numbers raised and a cache of letters written in code. No time to sort the wheat from the chaff. Robert stuffed them all inside his doublet. Five minutes later he was mounting his horse in the stable yard.
The gate was closing behind him when a man in the leather buff coat and coloured sash of a cavalry officer cantered towards it, a servant following. The man slowed his horse to allow Robert to pass and then reined in abruptly.
“Rob! By all that’s holy, how did you come here? Well met.” A smile lit up Ned’s face. “But you are leaving. Will you not stay and break bread with me?”
The colour drained from Robert’s face. This unlooked-for meeting could jeopardise both his mission and his life.
“Ned! I wish it might be so but alas, I may not stay.”
“Then let us walk for a half hour. I promise I will detain you no longer.”
Ned slid from his horse in an easy movement and handed the reins to his servant. Robert gazed into the wide, guileless blue eyes, sweat prickling his back. The broken desk and missing papers might be discovered at any moment. Accustomed to his role as intelligencer, he knew he had grown careless. He glanced upwards at the gable, picturing his body swinging from it by the neck.
“Not a quarter hour, friend. My business is pressing; but walk with me as far as yonder copse. Then I must leave you.”
Ned looked at him strangely and nodded. “Then sobeit.”
Robert dismounted and the two followed the path across the Sussex downs towards the distant copse, Robert leading his horse. Ned strolled beside him, cutting a moody swathe with his sword through the spikes of red sorrel growing thickly across the slopes. He picked up a fallen plant and nibbled a red-veined leaf.
“They call it bloody dock, but to me it brings the taste of lemon to mind. Do you not think so?” He proffered the half-eaten leaf and Robert tasted it before pulling a face.
“I do not. Are you trying to poison me?”
Ned laughed and dropped the mangled remains. “Sorrel is physic, Rob, not poison.”
They had almost reached the copse. Frothy white blossoms of May shone before them.
“I always thought when I was a boy,” Ned said dreamily, “That togas might have been this colour when the ancient Romans whitened them with chalk. It is the very colour of freedom, is it not?” He sighed and replaced his sword, lightly dusted with red from the sorrel, in its scabbard.
Robert cast an anxious glance behind him towards the distant house for signs of pursuit. “I must take my leave, Ned.”
“And with no word of why you came or whence? You are a strange fellow, Rob. But perhaps a quarter hour will not suffice for all we have to say. Another day, brother, when the war is done, and friends may sit at table conjuring sweet memories and past loves.”
Smiling, Ned embraced Robert’s rigid body. As he released his hold, the concealed papers slipped from beneath Robert’s doublet to the ground. Ned glanced at them as he picked them up. The smile vanished from his face.
“What is this?” He looked up to see Robert was holding a drawn sword.
“Give me the papers, Ned,” Robert ordered. “I would not harm you.”
Ned inclined his head graciously. He nodded at the naked blade in Robert’s hand. “If your intent is not to use that on me, you might sheath it.” There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
“Do you think this is a time to jest, Ned?” Robert snapped.
“To everything there is a season, Rob. And which is this? If not a time to jest, is it a time to kill? I asked you why you are here. Now I see you came as thief or spy. You have placed your head in a noose.”
“And will you be the hangman?” Robert asked hoarsely, trembling at Ned’s words. He felt trapped. With a shaking hand, he touched the tip of the sword to Ned’s neck. The sharp steel broke the skin, but Ned did not flinch, even when a bead of blood formed, then another, rolling down onto his white collar.
“Let us waste no more time. You will hand me those papers and forget you saw me.” Robert lowered the sword and took a pace back.
“And if I do not choose to?” The words were polite, but Robert was infuriated by the thought Ned was testing him.
“I said that I would not harm you. That is my intent, my hope, but my duty is to the King.”
“I see you are in deadly earnest, Rob. Why did you not join with me in the cause of freedom, fighting for Parliament? We might have spent our days in deeds of valour and our nights in fellowship.”
“Do not confuse freedom with treachery, Ned. They are two quite different things. Return to the side of right. Your conscience will be clear.” It was an argument Robert had used many times when questioning captured rebels, but he was no longer sure that he believed it.
“And why should I join your cause now? It is all but lost. The king’s garrisons are falling like ninepins. Only a fool would do so.”
The barb struck home. Robert’s voice was cold when he answered. “There is no dishonour in defeat.”
“I should not have said that.” Nodding acceptance of the apology, Robert lowered his blade and reached for the papers. There was a rasp of steel as Ned drew his sword. The two faced each other, sword arms extended.
“Ned, please. Give me the papers.”
Ned tossed them out of reach and Robert lunged impulsively. Ned parried and the steel blades met with a loud clash. Robert looked in horror at his sword, as if it had acted of its own volition.
“Ah, brother, you have no appetite to do this.” Ned’s tone was playful. Flushing with anger at the taunt, Robert rushed at him. Ned dodged sideways and tripped him neatly. “Enough foolishness, Rob.” Ned dropped his sword and extended a hand.
Struggling to his feet, Robert glimpsed the shadow of an outstretched arm and lunged upward to defend himself. Ned stared in surprise as the blade struck beneath his arm, burying itself in his body.
“No!” Robert leapt forward in panic to staunch the welling blood. “What have I done?” He had thought only of making good his escape.
Ned swayed and Robert caught him as he fell. He tore off Ned’s cloak and packed it about the wound, but the red tide pumped steadily through its woollen folds. “I will fetch a surgeon.”
“No use, Rob,” Ned moaned. “Too deep.”
Robert knelt on the springy turf, cradling the mortally wounded man in his arms. Ned clutched at his hand.
“Come live with me and be my love,” he whispered.
“And we will all the pleasures prove,
There will I make thee a bed of roses,” Robert replied.
He thought the warm lips formed the word “roses” as Ned’s soul fled. Robert dropped a kiss on the golden hair and crossed himself, sobbing.
Robert was roused by his horse nudging him. He could not remain there sitting on the ground with Ned’s head in his lap, but neither could he leave him as food for crows. Robert hefted the limp body with difficulty and slung it over the saddle, covered with his cloak. A lifeless arm dangled from beneath the cloth. Never again would he feel it, muscular and warm, draped across his bare chest on frosty nights and sunny mornings while the bells of Oxford tolled the passage of hours that would not return.
About the author
A.J. Lyndon was born in Wales and now lives in Melbourne, Australia. She studied English and history at university. After a life-long interest in historical fiction and the English Civil War, she wrote The Welsh Linnet, the first installment in a historical saga about two families caught up in the turbulent events of 1640s England. Her second novel, The Tawny Sash, will be published in 2021.
She is married with two children and Disney the dog, named after royalist army officer Edward Disney, who was imprisoned in Warwick castle in 1643.
About the artwork
The illustration is Portrait of the artist with Nicholas Lanier and Sir Charles Cotterell by William Dobson, oil painting ca. 1645. In the collection of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, England. In the public domain.