Lambert, holding a basket of grain, was surrounded by his ornamental pheasants, their plumage brilliant in the autumn sunshine. He turned quickly when he heard a footstep on the gravel behind him, but when he recognised John he smiled his sweet smile. ‘Ah, Mr Tradescant, have you brought my bulbs yourself?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ John said. ‘I am sorry to learn that you are confined here.’

‘Oh,’ Lambert said equably. ‘Fortunes rise and fall in politics as well as in battles. In any case you find me bidding farewell to my birds now because I expect to be summonsed today.’

‘To battle or to politics?’ John asked.

Lambert grinned. ‘They’re much the same.’ He cocked his head. ‘Listen. D’you hear anything?’

John listened, then heard the steady beat of a company of horse in trot, and the jingle of armour. ‘Soldiers,’ he said.

‘Then I think this is my summons,’ Lambert remarked and John could hear the exultant joy in his voice at the prospect of action. ‘Ask them at the stables to saddle my charger for me, would you, Mr Tradescant? I don’t think I’m going to be able to plant bulbs today.’

‘Can I come too?’ John asked.

Lambert laughed. ‘If you wish it. D’you have any idea where we are going?’

‘No,’ John confessed.

‘Then you’re as wise as I.’

John pulled Caesar from the shafts of the cart, borrowed a saddle from Lambert’s groom and waited beside the company of Lambert’s horse for the few moments until the general came out of the house.

‘What’s going on?’ John asked one of the troopers.

‘They’ve called out the other regiments against us,’ the man said shortly. ‘It’s between our major general and the Members of Parliament. They’ve reneged on every promise they’ve ever given us and when we protest they call it treason. Now they’ve gone to ground in the Houses of Parliament with two regiments thrown around it and the Parliamentary Horse Guards leading the defence and saying that we must disband. Telling us to throw down our arms as traitors. Us who beat the king for them, then beat the Scots for them, and then beat Charles Stuart for them, and only last month beat George Booth for them. Us, disband! And hand over the general too! So they can throw him into the Tower beside Booth who fought against us!’

‘And left the battlefield in a petticoat,’ someone added to a rumble of laughter.

‘And what can you do?’ John asked. ‘They’re the Parliament, and if they’ve got the Horse Guards out …’

‘It’s what he can do,’ the trooper replied, nodding towards Lambert, who swung into the saddle and trotted down the road at the head of his troop.

‘What can he do?’ John asked.

The trooper grinned. ‘Anything he likes, is my guess.’