What Have You Got to Hide? A prequel to The Battle of Maidstone. 1st June 1648 (warning- violence and sexual references)

Nell gives her husband a quick peck on his cheek as he steers the boat towards the jetty, allowing the sail to collapse and the boat to lose way and bump gently up against it.

‘Don’t do anything silly love,’ he mutters, for her ears only. ‘I’ll be back for you this afternoon.’ She hands over a sixpence with a great fuss, slipping him a sly wink as she disembarks.

‘Thank you for your service, sir, I will recommend you when I return to Rochester,’ she says, to no-one in particular but as loud as seems to her appropriate for a well-to-do tradeswoman to a lowly waterman, summoning an outward show of confidence that is far from real. She grips one of the jetty’s stanchions and hoiks her long skirts up to step up onto the its age-grey planks. She focusses on her grip on the battered stanchion, the skin at the back of her neck crawling, as if everyone has suddenly turned to look at her. There are certainly a lot of people at the dock today. Many voices clamour for attention, hawkers thrust their wares forward, a well-dressed lady shouts to attract her husband’s notice. Nell glances around; no-one appears to be paying her any attention apart from a persistent hawker who thrusts a dubious- looking pasty under her nose. She pushes him away and climbs the worn wooden ladder, its rungs creaking under her weight, but no-one pays her any notice. She risks a quick glance over her shoulder and sees her husband haggling with the well-dressed lady, playing his part in this little deception perfectly. She swallows hard at the lump in her throat. She will see him again, she will see him again, her thoughts like a prayer to Saint Jude, although the minister would not approve if he new. No reason to ever tell him, and anyway, we are risking our lives, so he can keep his thoughts to himself and his narrow-minded mouth shut.

The town had changed little in the eight years since she’d left after her parents died. With nothing to keep her in Maidstone she’d caught a boat to London with her parent’s meagre savings sewed into her skirts and determination to make something of herself in the capital. She’d failed. The boatman caught her eye, they’d talked and laughed, and ended up married. He’s a good husband. She’d never suspected he was also brave. He stayed in the Trained Bands when war broke out and faced down the King’s army at Turnham Green (well, maybe with a little help from his comrades) and saved London for Parliament. He’d stayed with the army and she had followed, until the war was won and the errant King brought to heel. She’d hoped that their life would return to normal. But no. The wretched king had escaped and the war had flared anew. Royalist rebels had whipped up discontent in Kent. In Maidstone even! She could not quite believe it. Her mother and father, God rest their souls, had always respected the king, because he was king, but despaired of his Catholic faith, leaning towards the Parliamentary cause and greater control of his whims by a staunchly protestant Parliament. She had followed their example. And now Lord Fairfax, learning of her origins, had asked her to find out how things stood in her home town.

So here she is, in the dying days of May, tasked with being Parliament’s general’s eyes and ears. What did she know of soldiering? But he had smiled and said she knew the town better than anyone else in his army. She could save a lot of her husband’s fellow soldiers lives. In the end she had agreed. He was very persuasive.

She knows she only has a few hours before her husband will be back. Plenty of time to have a good look around. She works her way towards the High Street, with its black-timbered houses, their ground floors given over to stalls that crowd together, displaying their wares, their proprietors shouting or singing out their apples (last years), strawberries (this year’s), Spanish oranges (just delivered), freshly slaughtered pork, beef, chicken and ducks with stretched necks hanging from hooks. All so familiar. What was not were the people. Kentish folk, their accents familiar in her ears, but also the abundance of soldiers. Infantry in buff coats and montero caps, or the floppy broad-brimmed ones favoured by the wealthier or luckier. Cavalry in tall boots, swords dangling at their waist. And their accents, from all over the country, also familiar from her last six years following the drum.

She weaves her way up the High Street through the noontime crowd to where it crosses with Gabriel’s Hill and Week Street. The crowd parts for a moment and she has to suppress a gasp. Eight big guns are drawn up, wheel to wheel, facing down the High Street to the bridge across the river. The Medway is deep and strong here and the bridge is the only way to cross it. If Fairfax is to fight his way in, there will be carnage. This by itself is enough to justify her little expedition. But she still has four or so hours before her husband’s return. It is the first day of summer. The sky is clear and a gentle breeze blows. Plenty of time for her to have a look around. She stands at the crossroads by the guns. Which way? Left along Week Street or right down Gabriel’s Hill, just as steep and narrow as it ever was. Because that is where home used to be. She finds her feet taking her that way without any conscious decision.

It is still there. The house where she’d been born and grew up. The upper story juts over the street that still has a shallow ditch down the middle, still has a small trickle of piss from the night soil flung out of bedroom windows, carefully or not with a cry of “watch under!” She cranes her neck upwards. The chimney is still crooked, heaven knows how it has survived this long without falling.

‘Here, watch your loitering there! What business have you got with....’ She whirls on her foot to face the stranger. A man, older than she is, by some years. Something familiar about him...But what? She knows his face, but where from? He stares back at her, then raises a querulous finger.

‘I know you. You’re Ben and Sarah’s girl, God rest their souls. They’ve been gone since before the war...’ He stares at her harder, a steely gaze, suspicion dancing across his face, she feels as welcome as a fox in a henhouse. ‘What brings you back here?’

Suddenly she remembers. Henry Fiddler, their old neighbour, a cantankerous old curmudgeon. Clearly the years have not mellowed him.

A good thing she and Bill have practiced what to do if she is confronted. A good use of the journey from London to Maidstone. “If asked, you must know the answer. Hesitate and you’re lost. You’re a good wife and I’d miss you if you was hanged.” He’d squeezed her hand. He was never one for words, but he loved her in his own way and didn’t beat her like other husbands did.

‘Here on business, if it’s any business of your’n which it ain’t. And yes, me dad and mum ‘re gone and left me with no-one.’

That last bit has added itself to what they’d prepared. Say as little as you can, her husband had said. If you were really in business, you’d do that.

She put her hands on her hips and gave him one of her special stares, the one she reserved for rowdy drunks they often rowed across The River of an evening. ‘Who might you be?’ she demanded, arching one eyebrow.

Fiddler stands his ground. ‘Nell Hardwick. Thought you was dead. You havn’t changed much...a bit bigger here,’ he reached towards her bosom and she slapped his unwanted hand away. ‘But still the same little spit-fire.’ He folded his arms and leaned back a tad. ‘Not a good time for business ‘specially for a .... woman.‘ He scratches his cheek and gives her another hard stare. She stares back, unwilling to give ground first. They are like two rams facing off. ‘Strikes me,’ he said slowly, as he continues to scratch, ‘that yer Ma and Pa were very much against the king when they was alive.’ He crossed himself, what looks to her like a long-established habit. ‘Can’t do no harm for the gen’ral to have a word with you. To be on the safe side. There’s rumours aplenty of spies and sabotagers…If yer story stands up, well missy, you can go about yer business.’

Her insides turned over. “Don’t show any fear…” her husband’s words echoed in her mind. How could she not show fear? This man has recognised her, remembers her folks. Her game is over. She can already feel the noose around her neck. But then she remembers a card game her husband had foolishly got involved in. She’d watched as he laid a months’ wages on the table with nothing but deuces and treys in his hand. He’d looked his comrades in the eye and kept a face as straight as a minister’s on a Sunday. Only she could see the vein pulsing in his neck. One by one his opponents threw their hands in. He’d folded his cards and pulled the piled coins towards him. “Go on then show us what you got,” they’d called. He’d smiled, picked up the deck and shuffled his hand into it. “You didn’t pay to see it, so’s I don’t reckon I needs to show you,” was all he said as he pouched the coins, stood, winked at her and led her away from the table.

‘That’s “Mistress” to you, Henry Fiddler. But if that’s what it takes to do business in this town, and I must say, things’r a lot worser than when I left, but if it’ll get you off my back it’s a price worth paying. But it better be quick mind! I ain’t got no time to waste foolin’ about with gen’rals,’ And she sticks her nose in the air and folds her arms.

***

Sir Gamaliel Dudley is the Maidstone's military governor, and he, naturally, has taken the grandest house on Week Street for his headquarters. He’s a veteran of Marston Moor and Naseby, Fiddler tells her as he leads her up Gabriel’s Hill and past the gun battery. Fiddler also proudly tells her that he himself volunteered to join the rebellion a week ago, just after the fighting broke out again and Kent declared for the King. She hums and hahs like she did with garrulous customers, keeping them sweet while they waited for her husband with his boat. She and her husband provided a reliable and safe service, so they had many regular customers who lived on the south bank but worked on the north in the City. She let her neighbour prattle on. She learns that he thinks the garrison is a good two or three thousand, with Sir William Brockman’s veteran regiment of foot and Sir John Mayney’s veteran regiment of horse. The rest are seamen, London apprentices and watermen, as well as local volunteers like him, fed up with the puritan ways of the parliament, especially the banning of Christmas! She has some sympathy with him on that. Parliament is going too far, but better that than the caprices of a king who thinks he has a divine right to do whatever he feels like doing.

Sir Gamaliel proves to be a genial fellow with an eye that she knows all too well.

‘Now my dear,’ he purrs, ‘this fellow here,’ he favours Fiddler with a scowl, ‘accuses you of being a spy for Sir Thomas Fairfax. What say you to that dreadful accusation eh? Pretty thing like you? Couldn’t possibly be a spy. What say you Mistress?’

She smiles, a secret little smile that is barely there except in the mind of a man with more intimate intentions, and averts her eyes. ‘Oh sir, I’m only here on business. Times’r hard and I need to keep my business going. I thought with the war being over an’ all, that I could find some new customers in the town.’

Sir Gamaliel nods sagely while stroking his goatee beard. ‘Indeed, indeed my dear. See here fellow, the lady is about her lawful business. What makes you suspect her of ill-intent, eh?’

Her neighbour, hat removed in deference, wrings it between his hands, his face downcast under Sir Gamaliel’s clear displeasure. ‘Well, Sir, its just that…she was standin’ there…I thought I recognised…her folks, they’re dead now these eight years…they were for parliament…I mean…’

‘You mean,’ says Sir Gamaliel as Fiddler’s voice drains away, ‘that just because you disliked her parents, I should treat her as a spy! Petty feuds are no foundation for justice, or a replacement for proper evidence!’ He beckons to the foot soldier standing on guard in the corner. ‘Throw this fool out forthwith!’ He turns with a smile back to her. She is keeping her face demurely to the floorboards, afraid her hammering heart will betray her.

‘I don’t know how to thank you sir,’ she says, her voice a whisper.

‘Oh, my dear, I am sure we can find a way.’ Sir Gamaliel does not even try to conceal the leer that infects his voice.

Out of the frying pan… she thinks. There is a loud and heavy thud from outside and an audible squeal of pain. The guard bustles back in, but before he can say a word, Sir Gamaliel stands. ‘Find this delightful young woman a room, will you Perkins? My dear…’ He turns to her. ‘Make yourself comfortable. We can dine together this evening.’ She knows what the look in his eyes means. …And into the fire. And it is only mid-afternoon or thereabouts, difficult to know being indoors. Her husband could be back by now.

‘This way Mistress.’ The guard taps her on the shoulder to attract her attention.

‘Oh, yes…of course…’ His hand is pointing towards the door. She allows herself to be led out into the hallway. It is indeed a grand house, to have a separate room to welcome guests, and it is now heaving with activity; soldiers coming and going bearing papers and bulging saddlebags, the wooden wall-panelling multiplying the chaos of their voices. Much like Lord Fairfax’s headquarters, she realises. There is the front door, only a yard or so away. So near…

‘This way Mistress.’ The guard is now pointing to a wide staircase, his hand gentle but insistent on her elbow, when a loud voice cuts through the hubbub.

‘That’s Nell Hardwick! What’s she doing here?’

She looks up into an accusing finger. Behind the finger a familiar face; a fellow London waterman. Last she’d heard, he’d gone to be a soldier for the king. She steps up to him. ‘Willy Ragstone!’ she cries, as she grabs his arm. With a swift tug she pulls him towards her and knees him where it hurts. He crumples to the floor but she is off, out the door, lifting her skirts and sprinting down Week Street, weaving thought the crowd who part before her like she is Moses. Behind her a rising tide of angry voices, boots clattering on the cobblestones. No time to think, she bangs herself to a halt on the wheel of a gun then hurls herself down the High Street, running like she’s never run before, as well she might because all the hounds of hell are now chasing after her. She veers into a peddler balancing a tray of apples on his head, sending him sprawling. The apples scatter like a mushy game of marbles.

‘Oi! Stop her! Spy!’

People turn to look but she is already half way down the hill. She takes a left into Mill Street, gambling that her pursuers have not been born and bred here, makes a sharp right down a narrow alley that leads to the dock and the jetty. Boots pound behind her still. Her breath sears in and out, she has only this one chance. Will he be there? She bursts onto the dock and sends another man flying. She stumbles, nearly falls but rights herself and slithers to a halt, scanning the waiting boats.

There he is!

‘Got you, spy!’ A hand grabs her shoulder, hard and unyielding. She spins on her foot. She’s done this before with the more familiar kind of drunkard; her hand, balled into a fist, whirls into his ear. His head snaps sideways. She follows with a punch borne of desperation into his chin. He drops like an abandoned sack of potatoes. She ignores the jetty, gathers her skirts and leaps down into the boat. Her ankle gives way with a nasty crunch and she screams as the pain. Her husband does not hesitate. He pushes off, thumps himself onto the thwart and begins to pull mightily on the oars. The current catches the boat and it picks up speed. He licks his finger and tests the wind.

‘Can you haul on the sheet love?’ She nods through her agony as her unbinds the sail and, together, they raise it to catch the breeze.

‘I told you not to do anything silly,’ he chides as he pulls on his oars.

‘That you did my dearest, that you did. But with what I’ve seen, Gen’ral Fairfax’ll have to let us go home. I think our soldiering days’re done.’

He winks at her and keeps on rowing. She smiles back through her pain.

The next day’s battle brought General Fairfax a victory, an end to the Royalist cause in Kent, and maybe a return to a less dangerous life for Nell and Bill.