A Cloak of Zeal

A novella of Edgehill. The first blood to be drawn in the English Civil Wars, at the Battle of Edgehill in autumn 1642. The King raises his standard against Parliament, and for bright, handsome young Puritan Thankful Russell, his new officer's commission in the Army of Parliament is the gateway to a freedom and a happiness he has never known before. Freedom, and friendship, and an escape from his zealot sister, and a new purpose in life. (And girls, and laughter, and music, and the other things that any ordinary good-looking young man at nineteen takes for granted.) But Thankful is no ordinary young man, and these are not ordinary times, and before the day has ended his life will take a turn that he never, in his wildest dreams, imagined. Or his worst nightmares.