Page 102 of By the Sword
‘And did you go back to Oxford?’ Kate asked.
He shook his head. ‘After Naseby, the war was all but lost. Rupert was sent west to hold Bristol, and as one of his officers, I went too. The west was ill-disposed to the King’s forces. Goring and Grenville had seen to that,’ he said angrily. ‘After Rupert surrendered Bristol in September of that year, he went back to Oxford and was promptly cashiered by the King for cowardice. He had left me in the west to lend what little support I could to the lost cause. For a few months, I had some success leading raiding parties and harrying the tail of Fairfax’s army, but my luck ran out. My men were tired, hungry and demoralized. Half of them had already deserted. One morning we ran straight into a regiment of Parliament horse. I had no choice. After putting up a token resistance I surrendered.’
He paused before taking a deep breath. ‘It was my misfortune to fall into the hands of a man whose family had paid dearly for their allegiance to Parliament at the hands of Goring and his crew. He had no love for the King’s men. He incarcerated us in the tower of an old church and left us there with no food and water for two days before he summoned me to his presence.’
Jonathan closed his eyes. He could still see the scene of that encounter so clearly–the tallow candles flickering on the table, the rancid smell of the two troopers who had escorted him and above everything else the hatred in the eyes of the two men who faced him; the colonel because he was a Royalist and Stephen Prescott because he was Jonathan Thornton.
‘Is this the man?’ the colonel had asked Prescott.
Prescott nodded, his eyes glittering in the light of the candle. ‘I can confirm that this is Jonathan Thornton. He is responsible for the hanging of five of our men he had taken prisoner.’
‘You lying bastard,’ Jonathan spat. ‘I’ve never hung prisoners.’
Prescott’s lip twitched. ‘Ah, but I have a witness, a personal account.’
Jonathan gave Prescott a contemptuous glare. ‘And I bet you paid him well.’
The colonel thumped the table and rose to his feet. ‘Be quiet. I’ve not given you leave to speak. Thornton, you will be taken to London for trial and tomorrow five of your men hang.’ He glanced at Prescott. ‘As we agreed, the prisoner is yours. I’ll leave you now.’
‘No.’ Jonathan lunged forward as the colonel left the room. ‘I’ve never hanged prisoners and I expect the same rights of war to be accorded to my men.’
But the door slammed shut, leaving him at the mercy of Stephen Prescott.
Prescott laughed, a cold mirthless laugh. ‘Tomorrow, Thornton, you’ll have the pleasure of watching your men die and know there is nothing you can do to prevent it.’
He crossed the floor towards Jonathan and struck him hard across the face with his heavy leather gauntlet. As Jonathan buckled against the troopers at the force of the blow, Prescott hit him again then seized him by the hair, forcing him to look into his face.
‘This is for my wife, you bloody adulterer. You murdering whoreson.’
Blood ran from Jonathan’s nose, and he could taste it in his mouth but he forced himself to meet Prescott’s eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You thought you could set cuckold’s horns on my head, the pair of you?’ Prescott said. ‘You have both paid the price. Mary is dead. Dead giving birth to your bastard.’
‘Dead?’ Jonathan groaned and his knees gave way.
‘Dead and her bastard child with her. I knew the child couldn’t be mine. I’d not lain with her the three years past. They tell me that on her death bed she called your name.’
Jonathan’s knees gave way and he groaned aloud, sagging in the grip of his captors.
As Mary had pleaded with him, she must have known she carried his child. Why hadn’t she told him?
Prescott hauled him up again but he had accomplished his end and Jonathan was too far gone in grief at Mary’s death to care what happened to him anymore.
‘She’s rotting in hell where she deserves to be,’ Prescott replied viciously. A cold smile spread across his face. ‘And you’re here with me. Hell may seem like a pleasant alternative.’
Prescott stood back and let the troopers finish what he had started. They stopped short of killing him, and when he came around he was back in the dank tower. As he looked around the dirty, anxious faces he wondered what he could say. Five of these innocent men would die for his folly. All he could do was pray for a miracle but there were no miracles and God had deserted them.
‘Jonathan?’
Kate’s voice brought him back to the present and he felt the weight of his past settling on his shoulders.
In slow, halting words he recounted that encounter with Prescott. As he spoke Kate leaned forward, taking his hands in hers.
‘Prescott made my men draw straws.’ Jonathan’s hands tightened on Kate’s. ‘Cornet Williams took fifteen minutes todie, choked at the end of a badly tied knot. He was only seventeen.’
Far away from that scene, both in time and distance, Jonathan closed his eyes as he saw again so clearly the faces that had haunted his dreams from that day on. So many, many times he had played the episode through in his mind, wondering what he could have said or done that may have averted the ultimate tragedy of those five wasted lives.
‘Prescott never took his eyes off me,’ Jonathan concluded with a shuddering breath. ‘He watched and he smiled. The same smile I saw as he raised his pistol against me in York.’
