'Well, you escaped being hurt,' Juliana replied, feeling her equilibrium falter. Would anything about this man ever be straightforward? Later, she would be relieved when Edmund visited and seemed as loyal to Lovell as always; he confirmed that the eve-of-battle arrests at Naseby village had happened.
Changing the subject, Juliana told Orlando about his brother's fate at Bristol. She spared him no details of Ralph's disfigurement, nor the lasting effects she thought it would have on his family. Orlando listened, with more respect than she had feared. He had seen men with such devastating wounds. He sat, head bowed for a long time, looking depressed.
'So…' he asked, after a suitable pause. 'How did my loving relatives receive you?'
'Badly'
'That was hard for you.'
'You cannot blame them.' Juliana risked the tricky question: 'Was I right to go?'
Orlando flung up his hands. 'You were right to try. By heaven, you know I tried myself, truly. Anything a man could say to win them over, I threw at them as obsequiously as they could wish.'
That was not quite how the squire had described it. I assume desperation made him peremptory. All he lacked was a demand that I myself should pay the fine for his delinquency… 'What was your father's reply to you, Orlando?'
'Did he not tell you?'
'Only hints.'
'He wished no evil on me, but said he could do nothing with Parliament. He sent me only one haughty letter, telling me to compound and beg for a pardon, then to mend my life.'
'Your sister Mary wrote more often, she told me.'
Orlando laughed briefly, suddenly himself again. 'Indeed! Endless sanctimonious instructions… After the first, I threw the letters in the fire unopened.'
'You had a fire then!' Juliana could be arch, 'I would have been allowed to bring you food and comforts. Would you not have liked tidings of me and your boys?' She struggled against a catch in her voice.
'It would have broken my heart!' cried Orlando, like a true cavalier. 'The worst of being imprisoned was to be separated from you!' They were back on their old footing by that time, so Juliana received this gallantry without excitement.
She told Orlando about meeting his land agent and her forays among his tenants. He listened with astonishment. Then he declared he had always recognised her great spirit. He called her a queen among wives. 'Have the committee given you a certificate?'
'They have. But in view of your escape, my effort was wasted.'
'Oh I won't pay a fine now, but the certificate will be of good use if ever I am captured again.'
'You intend to go on fighting? You could still compound for your estates. Say you will live in peace. Thousands of Royalists are doing it. Comply, and you could be given all your land back.' Juliana was testing him. She was certain that he had escaped in order to avoid swearing an oath he could not keep. He would fight for the King again until every hope was gone. 'Did you give your parole to your captors?'
'I may have done…' Orlando looked vague. 'Did you get any funds from my father? He swore he would give me nothing.'
'And he was true to his word.'
The squire's five pounds was hidden in a pillow. Now Juliana was, as she had boasted to Isaac Bonalleck, an honest woman with a conscience. One who was lying, bare-faced, to her husband.
They had three and a half months together. For the rest of January, February, March, and almost all of April, they lived like a real family. Since the town was under siege, it was hardly normal life. Juliana felt she was permanently waiting to begin a proper domestic regime. Still, there were few deprivations. Three thousand cattle and cartloads of other provisions had been brought in during the previous autumn to prepare for the siege.
All the careful routines she had established for bringing up her children sensibly were upset by Lovell. He had no idea that infants should keep regular mealtimes and bedtimes. He would bring them expensive presents, splurging their meagre funds, while Juliana tried to scrimp. Tom, in particular, was like an intriguing pet to Orlando, who would disrupt their quiet lives with games and dangerous excursions 'to view the rebels over the walls'. A bad moment was when he made small firecrackers from gunpowder for Tom, throwing one in the fire unexpectedly to terrify Juliana. She could not remonstrate since Lovell used the excuse that he wanted to spend every possible moment with his sons, or at least with Tom, who was old enough to play. 'If we are enjoying ourselves, what can be the harm?'
'You buy Tom's love with a hobbyhorse, while you are teaching him to see his mother as a figure of fun — or a complaining ogre, which is worse. I see harm in that, Orlando! And I shall murder you, if he is stupidly burned by a firecracker.'
'I shall reform!' promised Orlando. He solemnly told his son, 'Thomas, your mother's word is law. Follow my example and do not make her grieve. And if ever I am not here, Tom, you must obey and cherish her.'
Tom, bright-eyed with shared mischief, covered his mouth to hide his enormous grin, then ran off in fits of silly giggling.
'He is three years old. And you are — '
'Twenty-eight!' admitted Lovell penitently, with that untrustworthy look in his eyes.
At the end of January Sir Thomas Fairfax began a siege of Exeter. The King's trusty general, Sir Ralph Hopton, lured away Fairfax and most of the New Model Army by digging in at Torrington, where Fairfax winkled him out after a fierce fight. Fairfax himself had a narrow escape from an enormous explosion when a desperate soldier fired a huge magazine in the church. Offered generous terms, Hopton accepted; he disbanded the King's army in the west and went abroad. The Prince of Wales gave up and sailed for the Scilly Isles. In March another old Royalist, Lord Astley, marched from Worcester to bring the King at Oxford three thousand men. At Stow-on-the-Wold, he ran into a joint New Model Army force under Rainborough, Fleetwood and Brereton. After a heavy exchange of fire, Astley's force was overwhelmed and all made prisoners. This was the last remaining Royalist army in the field.
The King sought permission to go to Westminster, to negotiate in person, but was refused. A Frenchman began brokering terms for Charles secretly to join the Scottish Covenanters' army.
In April Sir Thomas Fairfax brought up the main body of the New Model Army from the West Country. The siege of Oxford began to bite. On the 26th the last Royalist garrison guarding the area, at Woodstock, fell. Next day the town governor, Sir Thomas Glemham, waved off a certain 'Harry', servant to a Mr Ashburnham. Harry and three companions successfully rode out over Magdalen Bridge. It was the King, disguised in rough clothes and with shorn hair, using a counterfeit warrant to get out through the Parliamentary lines.
Fairfax must have known the King had gone. He toughened up. At the end of the month he ordered his troops to allow no one to leave Oxford, except to negotiate terms. It had become a close siege.
Eight days after he left Oxford, the King turned up outside the long-standing Royalist base at Newark-on-Trent. It was still being besieged by the Covenanters and Charles placed himself in the Scots' control, hoping for better terms than he might expect from the English. He told Newark to surrender; three days later, the Scots took it. Immediately, they struck camp and transported themselves north to Newcastle, with the King in semi-captivity. In June, letters from him were intercepted, revealing his duplicitous secret negotiations with the Scots whilst at the same time, yet again, he requested armed support from the Irish and French. Parliament regarded this as treasonous.
In Oxford, neither side wanted a damaging siege. There was anxiety, though no desperate hardship. A magazine to supply provisions opened. A pronouncement was made that there would be a penalty of death for any soldier taking food from civilians. Cannon-fire was heard. Fairfax formally summoned the city, sending a trumpeter: