The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) by Swanston Andrew

Author:Swanston, Andrew [Swanston, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781446487280
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2013-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

THE FIRST NEWS of serious trouble came on the day of the dinner party, when Charles arrived at the Lytes’ house to find Thomas sitting in the parlour with Adam and Mary.

‘There’s been a raid on the Morgan estate in St Lucy,’ he reported, ‘a bad one. Three men killed and two house slaves with their throats cut. Three heads left impaled on stakes. Morgan was away. They took muskets and powder. One of Morgan’s men reported that there were about thirty of them, armed with flintlocks to bill hooks.’

‘It was bound to happen,’ said Mary. ‘Private militias, unguarded estates, runaway slaves. We’ve only ourselves to blame. Swearing oaths, indeed. What’s the point? Walrond’s caused nothing but trouble and trouble breeds trouble.’

‘It could easily happen to us. We must be prepared.’

‘What are you doing about defences, Charles?’ asked Adam.

‘As you know, after the rebellion three years ago I took certain precautions and I’ve posted sentries around the estate and made sure my men are adequately armed. I am content to leave matters in the hands of my steward, who is so ferocious that I suspect he was once a pirate. You’re much more vulnerable and there’s Mary to think of. These men are vicious.’

‘What do you suggest we do?’

‘I suggest that as soon as we’ve finished the excellent dinner that I can smell cooking, we make plans. Then we can get to work tomorrow. No time to lose with those savages on the loose.’

While they enjoyed Patrick’s roast leg of lamb, they talked of Walrond and the Assembly, of his absurd insistence on oaths of loyalty, of the inevitability of the island now being dragged into the war at home and of the likely effects on trade.

‘The man’s a dangerous lunatic,’ said Charles, mopping up claret sauce with a hunk of bread. ‘He’s putting it about that anyone who opposes him is plotting to murder every Royalist on the island and turn us into some form of Parliamentary tyranny. He’s even accusing Drax and Middleton of being in league with Cromwell.’

‘All he’s done,’ agreed Adam, ‘is to set landowner against landowner, freeman against freeman and servant against servant. What’s more, landowners leave their estates to take up arms and their slaves and indentured men run off into the woods.’

‘And attack the rest of us,’ said Mary. ‘What do you make of it, Thomas?’

‘At Newbury I saw two armies blasting and hacking each other to pieces for no obvious reason. When they’d finished, the king went back to Oxford and Essex marched on to London. All was much as it had been a few weeks earlier except that several thousand men had been killed or wounded. For such a thing to happen on an island as small and as prosperous as this would be even more absurd.’

‘No doubt you are right, Thomas,’ agreed Adam, ‘but war will not be averted by such sentiments. We need common ground and common sense. Alas, I fear that the Walronds have no interest in either.

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