Read William Falkland 01 - The Royalist for Free Online

any that tried to pass in the face of an organised defence. In the waxing and waning of powers, the King had never come close enough to London for those earthworks to earn their keep. If Cromwell was right then they never would. All the effort of their creation would become wasted, as this war had wasted so many.
    Shortly after we passed some common land where a vast bonfire had been piled high. It frustrated me to see, because I’d spent more than my fair share of nights freezing in army camps, huddled up with my horse for warmth, and I knew that Londoners would freeze in their houses this winter. The river was already covered in ice right across and this fuel would be better used warming their homes. It was only when we came close that I understood: there was no cheap Guy Fawkes on the pyre. There was a crude effigy of the Pope.
    I asked Warbeck for the date. He gave me a look that said it was none of my concern but at last he muttered, ‘The fifth, Falkland. The fifth of November.’
    So tonight they’d watch the Pope burn and cheer as he went up in smoke. There was once a time when the idea would have wounded me deeply, and though that time had passed many years ago, groping through a sea of blood and earth in some Yorkshire field, for some reason I still cringed from the image. I cringed too at the thought that a month from now those cheering, dancing men would be dying from the cold.
    ‘Does it injure you, Falkland, to see what Englishmen really think of your church?’
    ‘It’s not my quarrel.’
    I meant for him to understand that I was referring him to God but he must have been simpler than I thought. ‘Your quarrel?’ he gasped. ‘Isn’t that what you’re fighting for?’
    I gawped at him. ‘You think we take the King’s banner because the Queen is a Catholic or some nonsense like that? You think we fight because we wish to reunite our church with that of Rome?’ Perhaps some men did, but none that I’d seen, and in truth Cromwell had the right of it – that idea had been dead and buried long before I’d been born. Most of us were fighting because there was no way out, not for King or country or God – notions of God, I had supposed, were reserved for those who fought for Parliament. Cromwell had said otherwise. For my own part, I had long lost any idea of what any of us were fighting for. In the early days, I knew, much of England had tried simply to keep out of it, hiring bands of clubmen to try and hold the armies of both sides at bay, but it hadn’t done them any good. The war was a kind of collective mania and it touched us all. It’s hard to explain to the true believers. I’d tried before and never found much joy, and I supposed Warbeck would be the same. ‘How long will we be on the road?’ I asked.
    ‘Seven nights. Perhaps more, perhaps less. It will depend on what we find.’ He reached beneath the carriage seat, produced a bundle and handed it to me. I didn’t have to unwrap it to know that within it was a musket. Being a cavalryman I wasn’t used to the weapon, so I made to hand it back.
    ‘No.’ He pressed the musket into my hands. ‘You must carry it until we reach the camp. The roads are not safe.’ He had more under his seat, I saw. Three or four at least, wrapped to keep them dry. He didn’t offer me any powder. I was to bluff, then? And yet it pleased a small part of me – despite myself – to know that, even this close to London, bands of the King’s men perhaps travelled the roads. I hoped we didn’t find them. I’d sooner have died at the hands of an enemy than a friend.
    We passed through Richmond and the long hours drew out in silence. There was no incident that day and we repaired for the night to an inn on the road near the hamlet of Longcross. It was called the Lantern but no light shone from within. Indeed, I hadn’t known it was there until Warbeck commanded the carriage to stop and ordered me out. We were on a desolate stretch of highway where there