A Midsummer Tempest

XXIII

Cromwell’s army had started well up the staggered flanks of it. Few men were readily seen on either side.

Taking what lee they could in dug trenches or behind trees, bushes, boulders, bluffs, they lay waiting for their officers’ call to make the next advance or the next resistance. Musket fire crackled only irregularly.

This was the hour of the cannon.

Those roared steadily, in masses, from the Round-head stations. Muzzles flashed, missiles rumbled through air, solid shot hammered down and canister burst in shrieking thousandfold, over and over and over. Smoke hung in a bitter blue haze. For the wind had died with afternoon. A pallid sun glimmered, vanished, struck through again, out of slowly dissipating chill gray. Given such calm, the attackers employed a lately invented device: two hot-air balloons they had brought, tethered to float higher than the hilltop, observers in the baskets using telescopes and surveyors’ instruments to spot for the artillery to which they wigwagged down their signals—grotesqueries hanging above town and land like the future itself.

The Royal positions made slight reply. Riding, Rupert said to Will and Jennifer: “The guns are plainly few which our people could drag to the top of this mount. No doubt they’re equally poor in ammunition. They’d’ve been overrun erenow, were it not such labor hauling ordnance uphill against fire.”

“It costs, thic,” said Will. (A dead man sprawled in withered grass. ) “Why not just lay ziege?”

“We are the reason.” Rupert’s grin writhed. “Inadequate; quite likely soon refuted.”

“Too laete, I think we should’a cut our hair short, thee an’ me.”

“With Occam’s razor? Nay, not every Parliamentarian goes polled, the more so after weeks of dispute. I think best I be quickly recognizable at need. Meanwhile, wear thine Ironside outfit as if it belonged to thee.”

“Thine plainly does not,” Jennifer murmured.

“Well, I hate seeing a soldier sloppy-unlaced as myself,” Rupert admitted. “However, we mustn’t act apologetic, or timid, or unsure in any way. That’s death—or capture, which could be worse.

Behave as if we own the place.” His neck stiffened. “We do.”

Jennifer’s fingers tightened on Prospero’s staff. “ ’Twould be too cruel if thou… any of us got killed by a loyal sharpshooter.”

“Aye, we’ve a gap to win across, and must build our bridge with whatever wreckage we find;—Hold!”

Rupert drew rein. “I spy… Follow my lead, say naught, obey any command on the instant.”

A trio of fieldpieces—one sacar, two lighter falconets—had appeared as the riders passed a thicket. Shot and bags of powder lay heaped around; wagons and horses must have gone on elsewhere, for none but the crews were in view. Two men to a weapon, they swabbed, loaded, corrected aim, touched match to fuse, swabbed, loaded… An ensign squinted through his glass at the balloon which was visible from here, notepad held ready for a calculation of how best to lay the next barrage.

Rupert cantered toward them. Discharge crashed; his ears hurt, smoke rankled in his nostrils, echoes tolled.

Despite the weather, some soldiers had stripped to the waist. Sweat shone through the dirt on them. These men who man this post of guns court deafness, he thought. How bloodshot glare their eyes from powder soot; how weary must they be from hour on hour, unknowing when they may be blown apart—yet still bombard their King in honest effort, methodical, indomitable, English.

“Halt!” challenged the ensign. “Who comes hither? To your muskets, boys!”

“Why,’a’s no ancient,” Will muttered; “hear his voice go squeak.”

Rupert stopped. No matter his disarray, in the saddle he towered overwhelmingly above them. “Three scouts sent forth to probe the area,” he announced. “The aerostats have spied what well may be the founding of an enemy emplacement. Cease firing whilst we dash on high to look; stand ready, though, to cover our retreat.”

“Aye, sir.” The youth saluted. “You’re valiant, risking—”

Jennifer. Rupert smote fist in palm. “I’ll take the lead, and Will the rear,” he said. “Ride on!”

He spurred his animal.

Up over the rough ground he went, a jarring gallop where sparks flew from stones and the breath of the beast came hoarse through boom of more distant cannon. Ahead loomed a wall of brush and scrub woods.

Who loured behind? Dear God, he prayed, if Royal lead must bring me down, let it be me indeed, not her, not her!… I know, I hope our friends will hold their fire, astonished, curious, at this lonesome three… Well, if they don’t—O Jesus, keep her safe.

“Shoot not at us, King Charles’s men!” he shouted out of full lungs. “Stand by! It is Prince Rupert of the Rhine come back!”

He unbuckled the morion which sat so badly on his too-big head and cast it aside. Cut from a shirt and tied underneath was a white cockade, his olden sign. Down spilled the black locks, around that face which many should remember.

A bullet buzzed near. The artillerymen had realized something was amiss. But at extreme range, and they not trained musketeers—He crashed through leafage. Withes whipped horse and rider, drawing blood.

Then suddenly men surrounded him, no different from their enemies to see, but crying aloud: “It is Prince Rupert! Rupert has returned! Protect him with your bodies, him and these! Bring him at once, the prince before the King!”

Nothing else remained of the Chapel of St. Michael on the Tor. Its roof was gone and holes were more broad than empty windows, where shots had battered through. Cloud-shuttered sunlight entered more weakly than did the gun-grumble. Yet those olden walls were the sole shield there was for the sovereign of Britain.

He stood like a miniature, or like a much larger man seen through the wrong end of a telescope, in front of his captains and councilors. They were grim and begrimed, their backbones slumped, the rags which clung to them soured by the sweat of days. Charles was no less gaunt and sunken-eyed. But his little body kept erect; dust seemed almost an ornament upon combed hair, trim beard, lace and plum velvet of Cavalier garb; and the bandage across his brow might well have been a crown.

Guards at the doorway stamped pike butts on floorstones. Rupert entered, Jennifer and Will shyly behind, among a tumult of men who shouted their tidings. Down on one knee before his uncle, the warrior still was close to overtopping him.

“Your Majesty, I am come home to serve you,” he said.

Charles’s tranquility broke asunder. He shook as he embraced the other. “Be welcome, welcome, triply welcome, Rupert! Arise. Thou spokest truth. Here is thy home.” To those around: “Make free, his friends!

Rejoice while still ye can.”

Some held back, stating formalities. Even today, when nothing seemed left for their losing, they had no love for the meteor which had shaken their military firmament. Lord Eythin bustled to the doorway, rattling: “Out, out, ye rabble! Cram not in. Go back where ye belong, upon the firing line,” and got several sergeants to help him enforce this. Meanwhile, the rest swarmed around Rupert. Maurice cast himself into his brother’s arms. They pounded backs, swore sulfurous Dutch, German, French, Bohemian oaths, and scarcely heard William Legge say, “We thought thee dead. If heaven has kept stored the prayers for thee, already thou’rt a saint.”

“You’re prating like a Papist, Legge,” Eythin growled. He windmilled his arms at Rupert’s companions.

“Forth! Out!”

“Not those, my two beloved followers.” Rupert elbowed aside the Scot, who stood speechless in his indignation. Turning to King Charles, Rupert went on, above diminishing voices and confusion: “Your Majesty, without the pair of them, I’d lie in chains or head-foreshortened coffin. Not only did they pluck me freedom’s flower as a free gift of love and loyalty, but fearlessly fared far and far away to stare down strangeness in its inmost lair. The weapons they’ve brought back to fight for you belike have scanty power in this world; but in your heart, my lord, the Royal standard will fly eternally victorious through knowing you have subjects such as these.”

Jennifer clung to his arm. “Oh, Rupert, nay,” she whispered. “We were two sparks at most, struck from thy flint and steel.”

Will shuffled his feet. “Doan’t puff us up,” he added. “We’d bust liake bladders flailed against a zword.”

Maurice scratched his head. “What cookery of metaphors is this?”

Silence fell over the gathered noblemen and soldiers. The bombardment sounded unreal. Charles held out his hand. “If such they be,” he told his nephew, “I crave of thee the honor of learning what their names and stations are.”

His courtly reserve cracked again when the smaller one curtsied. Rupert had to smile. “This is no lad you see before you, sir,” the prince explained. “She is a maid hight Jennifer Alayne, and she will be my bride if God allows that we outlive this war.” Defiantly: “A commoner,’tis true, but worthy to be made a princess.

Likewise Will Fair-weather, a humble crofter, could supply heart”—his gaze raked his rivals—“to fifty thousand dukes.”

Charles stood thoughtful a moment before he also smiled, in grave wise, and addressed the two: “If this be so—and Rupert’s ever truthful; as starkly truthful as a battle-ax—why, then, you’re welcome, less to these poor quarters than to the throne-room of my regnant soul.” He kissed the girl’s hand. “My lady, if thou hast no near male kin, may I bestow thee on the wedding day?” (She burned in bewilderment and glory. ) To the man: “And thou… art William called Fairweather, right? This is no time to speak of peerages, estates, or any other mortal gift. But if thou wilt swear service to the Crown—’tis but a form, I’m sure thou’lt understand—”

No less confused than Jennifer, Will blurted,”’Foare God an’ Christ, I’ll ever zarve my King.”

“Then kneel.” Will obeyed? Charles drew blade to touch him on shoulders and head. “For our own honor more than thine, here in this hallowed place we make thee knight. Arise and be Sir William Fairweather.”

The man reeled to his feet and stood trembling. “Me? Kniaght? Liake thic there Lancelot? Can’t be!” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “What’ll Nell zay whan she do hear o’ this? Oh, zir, thou’st maede me blubber liake a baebe.”

Rupert, Maurice, Legge, and some others pressed in to congratulate him. They could not take long about it.

Jennifer drew him aside and held him as a sister might, while Rupert stood before King and court.

“Lord, I have weeks to tell you of in minutes,” the prince said. “I’d fain discuss them privily with you and certain councilors who’ll stay discreet—Nay, best we two alone; no jealousies. I’ll hope that you’ll believe, and not recoil, and reach a calm decision what to do.

“However, gentlemen,” he announced to the whole gathering, “I shall reveal: the three of us did not seek here to die, but from a quest abroad where we have won some secret strong instrumentalities. I’ll not pretend that they can win the fight.

Quite probably there’s naught will come of them. Yet if we do not try, we spurn God’s grace.”

Slowly his voice grew, till it drowned the cannon: “Whatever happens, let’s not crouch besieged until those dogs around have dug us up. We’re men, I say, not badgers gone to earth. Let’s tighten every sinew we have left and sally forth. Mayhap we can break through and find the sea, and ships to save our King.

Mayhap at least we’ll give the foe a shock that makes him grant us honorable terms by which we may depart alive and free, to amnesty or exile as we choose. Or maybe we’ll be shot to nothingness. Well, what of that? If we do naught, we’re done; while if we fare and fail, we’ll fall together—how better than in battle-brotherhood?”

Maurice cheered. Several men joined in. The younger prince sprang forth, to pace leonine as he responded: “Whate’er thy weapon, Rupert, thou art ours! It was the lack of thee which gutted us. Thou’d’st ne’er have let us creep into a hole; nor, given thee, would we have thought of it. Hear how the troopers shout beyond our tower! The single word of thee is worth a Caesar. And think how it goes flashing down this hill to burst and flame among the enemy. Hell-horrible to him, thy name strikes lame. At dusk, O King, when gunfire’s fallen still, I’ll take some chosen comrades to the plain. A careful few, who lead hoof-muffled horses, can slip past sentinels, in tricky twilight, who are but plow-boys and apprentices stuffed into jerkins. Rupert will recall how he and I, beneath the walls of Breda—No matter now. We’ll scatter far and wide, from house to house and moor to hill to forest, and cry the word: ‘Prince Rupert has returned! That lump-machine of Cromwell’s could not crush him. If ye’d be free, take down your fowling piece, your crossbow, scythe, bill, staff, avenging flail; make haste unto the ancient holy Tor and battle for the right to be yourselves. Though the year falls, the Green Man has returned. The plume of Rupert’s flying for the King!’ ”

Charles himself looked half dismayed; but a spirit had suddenly arisen among his men, and he was borne forth on its wings.

Its ruin lifted like a crag over wan grass, darkling brambles, bushes, and trees. The moon was barely up, to touch with ice the river, the plain, the ditches that vein it and are known as rhines, the remote but weirdly near-looking gray-blue Mendips, and that slow surge of hills called the Island of Avalon, which crests in Glastonbury Tor. The town below huddled mostly in darkness; hostile watchfires ringed the heights with red. Lean clouds coursed here and there among stars which flickered as cold as the whittering wind. Cold likewise were the guns, but bitterns boomed afar in the marshes.

A flame sprang up, became a fire, beat red-blue-yellow, and sang its dry, mysterious song. Four stood between it and the vanished chapel, facing the moon. Three had not changed garb. Rupert held Prospero’s book, Jennifer—in a skirt improvised from a cloak—his staff, King Charles a Bible; Will stood aside, an empty-handed scarecrow.

“So are we gathered,” Rupert spoke into night, “quite alone with God and with what lesser Powers we may raise by casting what small spells we know and dare. I fear they’ll be but few and feeble sprites. Yet must we try it for our fellows’ sake—”

There went a sound of movement, as quiet as possible, underneath the summit.

“—before we join them in their night attack, Sir William and myself.”

“I’ll pray,” Jennifer said in anguish.

Rupert nodded and looked at the King. “My lord,” he asked, “lead us in prayer, ere we draw wand or sword.”