Lambert shook his head. ‘There has to be a commander, just like in the army. But we don’t believe that God appoints a man to tell us what to do. If that were so, we might as well still obey the Pope and have done with it. We know what to do, we know what is right, we know that the hard-working men of this country need to be sure that their lands are safe, and that their landlord will not sell them to another, like a herd of cow, or suddenly take it into his head that their village is in his way and drive them out like coneys from a warren.’

Johnnie hesitated.

‘When you marched to Colchester were you quartered on poor farms with nothing to spare?’ Lambert asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’ve seen how badly some men live in the middle of plenty. The rents they have to pay are greater than the yield of their crops. We cannot have people forever struggling to make that gap meet. There has to be a balance. People must be paid a fair wage for their work.’ He paused. ‘When you were quartered on a poor farmstead did you take your feed for your horses and a chicken for your dinner and leave them no recompense?’

Johnnie flushed scarlet and shamefacedly nodded.

‘Aye, that’s the royal way,’ Lambert said bitterly. ‘That’s the kingly way to behave.’

Johnnie flushed. ‘I didn’t want to,’ he said. ‘But I had no wages.’

Lambert gripped his arm. ‘That’s how it happens,’ he said. ‘If all the wealth is concentrated on the king, on the court, then there must be poverty everywhere else. The king raised an army but had no funds so he didn’t pay you, so you had to take forage without paying, so at the end of the line there is some poor widow with one hen and the king’s man comes by and takes all the eggs.’

Hester watched her stepson and Lambert walk to the end of the orchard and then turn towards the lake.

‘I hope he can say something that will reconcile Johnnie,’ she said. ‘I’ve been afraid that he will never be happy again.’

‘He might,’ John agreed. ‘He’s had the command of many men. He’ll have come across lads like Johnnie before.’

‘It’s kind of him to take the trouble,’ she said.

John gave a wry smile. ‘I imagine he’ll take away a pot of my best tulips as his payment, won’t he?’

Hester gave a little laugh. ‘Not the Semper Augustus, at any rate,’ she promised.

Summer 1649