It only took a moment for Lyle’s mind to catch up. “Hayling.”
Tincey nodded. “The island’s salterns produce the very best quality.”
“White gold, they say.”
“Not far short, I’d wager. The likes of Goffe would pay a pretty penny. His garrisons can use the stuff for curing hides too, and it has power in a poultice.” Tincey glanced at the iron clouds. “But in the depths of the freezing months, food is scarce and meat must have salt.”
Lyle edged closer. “You are telling me because?”
Tincey brandished a triumphal grin and let go of the cloth so that they might part. He reached for the next, twisting back and speaking softly as the bundle crossed into Lyle’s waiting grasp. “There is a convoy bound for Winchester. A man would find it in Havant this very day, should he take the time to look.”
The soldiers appeared before Lyle could open his mouth to reply. They came from the house, just as Tincey had forewarned, a stream of leather and steel, spilling across the threshold so swiftly that a dozen had invaded the market before Lyle could consider his options. He dipped his head by instinct, praying the hood would do its job, while Tincey kept talking. The big man twisted back to his piled bolts, grabbing three at once and presenting them for Lyle to take. Lyle followed his lead, staggering with the increasing weight.
“There’s a good fellow!” Tincey bellowed happily. He glanced at Grumm. “Good for something, I do declare!”
The soldiers moved with purpose. They were not wandering, but searching. Lyle could sense them behind and in front, to the sides of the cloth stalls and out towards the road. They were isolating this section of the market, hands resting on the hilts of sheathed swords, passive but prepared. They were harquebusiers, to judge by their buff coats and lobster-tailed helms. Cavalrymen in the normal run of things, but dismounted now for this ominous duty, mounts tethered elsewhere while they stalked.
“There!” an iron voice called. They closed in, shifting closer to Tincey’s stall.
Lyle shut his eyes behind the textile shield, his pulse a torrent in his ears. He could smell the men. The stink of horse flesh wafted from them, unmistakable in the nostrils of one who had counted so many years in the saddle.
“There, I say,” the speaker barked again. “Take him.”
Lyle tensed. Not only by instinct, but because he recognised the voice. His guts churned in response. Men moved a little way to his right. His eyes were still clamped shut, but he could sense them, their shadows dimming the watery light. They could not recognise him, for he had barely looked up since arriving in the market place, but here they were, swarming like moths on a summer’s eve. The smell grew stronger, but no hands gripped him. No steel tickled his belly. He held his breath.
There was a short scuffle, all grunts and shifting feet, and then the light came back, the musk diluted in the crisp air. He risked a sideways peek. The soldiers had taken a man, bound his wrists at his back, and dragged him free of the crowd. They compelled him to stand before one of their own; the one in command — the one whose words had clamoured like marriage peals in Lyle’s mind. The man, another soldier, was as tall as Lyle, but with a bearing set thicker by an extra decade of life. His hair flowed to his shoulders in silver and black tresses from below a felt hat that looked new and expensive, while his grey eyes shimmered as they regarded his captive.
Eustace Grumm appeared at Lyle’s flank. “Shit on a short stick,” he muttered under his breath.
“Calm,” Lyle spoke into the cloth.
“Calm?” Grumm hissed. “What is the Mad Ox doing here? Christ’s wounds, but we’re for it now.”
“Whatever his purpose, it is not we three.”
The leader of the soldiers fiddled with gloved fingers at the scarf that formed a diagonal band across his torso. The golden-yellow material was fastened in a large knot at his hip, while the wide jaws of a roaring lion were embroidered at his shoulder in blackest thread. His poise was casual, a wolf in a flock of frightened sheep. He revelled in it.
“What is the meaning of this?” the apple-eyed captive bleated. He was skinny and slightly stooped, hollow cheeks pitted by spent disease, but his garb bore the well-appointed style of the town’s mercantile elite. “By what right do you treat me thus?”
“By the right of Major General William Goffe. You are Matthew Mallory?”
The rapidly blanching face betrayed the prisoner’s disquiet. “And who the devil are you, sir?”
The soldier tugged gently on the saffron silk so that any wrinkles jerked taut. “Colonel Francis Maddocks. The man whose duty it is to uphold General Goffe’s law.” He jabbed a finger at Mallory. “And you, sir, are accused of flouting said law. You are a coiner.”
Mallory puffed out his chest as far as his skinny frame allowed. “Not so, Colonel. Not so. A goldsmith, am I. Reputable, honest, and...”
“The very finest coin clippers are those whose fingers work metal by instinct.”
“How dare you, sir!” Mallory blustered. He looked into the faces of the growing crowd. “Which of you is my enemy? Which brazen viper makes such a claim?”
“Your own apprentice, Master Mallory,” the colonel said bluntly.
Mallory gulped air in preparation for a new tirade, but his lips simply smacked dryly. Terror had finally got the better of him, and quickly his vigour ebbed away. His face was drained, tinged a slight shade of green, and he stooped suddenly, as though he would vomit at any moment. When he looked up, there was nothing but pathetic resignation in his eyes. “But it harms no one, Colonel.”
Maddocks waved a hand, summoning dour-faced soldiers who immediately compelled Mallory into a stumbling walk.
“It harms none!” Mallory bawled in sudden, querulous explosion. “Coining is not mentioned in scripture, sir! Ergo, it is not a true crime!”
Maddocks snorted his derision and executed a crisp about-turn. “Put him in irons.”
The crowd disbursed as quickly as it had gathered, folk returning to the business of profit as though the martial sideshow had never transpired. The procession of soldiers clomped out of the cobbled space with their plaintive prize, grimly satisfied with the day’s work. Colonel Maddocks swaggered in their wake, a hand propped casually on the ornate hilt of his sheathed sword, his free hand clipping the brim of his hat as he acknowledged the grandees of the town.
“Lord have mercy upon us,” Eustace Grumm’s words tumbled on a lingering out-breath.
Lyle stifled his own relief, handing the makeshift palisade of cloth back to the merchant and gathering up the rolls Bella had selected. “Let us be gone,” he muttered, dry-mouthed, when the business was complete.
The trio slipped through the market place, stunned mute by the close call, oldest and youngest in the lead with Lyle, playing overburdened servant, traipsing in their wake. They were quickly aboard the vehicle, turning back towards the highroad that would take them north and east.
It was only when they were well clear of the town that any of them spoke. “To the Red Lion and safety,” Grumm called above the trundling cartwheels. “Some fine tobacco, some rich cheese, and a goblet o’ claret. That’ll settle my nerves, an’ no mistake.” His satisfied expression soured as one of his cheeks twisted in sudden spasm. He eyed Lyle through narrowed eyes. “Wait.”
“Wait?”
“I knows that look.”
Lyle, sitting amongst the bundles of cloth, could not prevent the half-smile that tickled the corners of his mouth. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You cooking somethin’ up, Samson?” Bella asked, the hint of mischief inflecting her tone.
Grumm glowered at them both. “Major?”
“It’s what Teensy said,” Bella guessed.
“Tincey,” Lyle said. “Teensey he ain’t.”
“What he said,” she persisted. “Talk o’ salt.”
Lyle nodded. “General Goffe is on the move, my friends. The Ironside Highwayman must ride again.”
4
Rake, Sussex, Decembe
r 1655
“They depart on the morrow.” Lyle yawned away the final word as he closed the door and walked into the Red Lion. It was light in the taproom, pale morning rays streaming through unshuttered windows on a cold, crisp breeze, but his legs felt leaden as he sidled across the rushes to the table Grumm had just wiped clean. He pulled up a chair, slumped heavily into it and yawned again. “Rendezvous with escort today, in Havant. Leave at dawn.”
“So says Celia,” Bella muttered. She was already squeezed up against the table edge, working her way through a chunk of bread that smelled like heaven to Lyle.
He chose to ignore the sneer in his young ward’s voice. “So she says.” He had passed the night elsewhere, a fact that increasingly brought simmering hostility from one particular quarter. But he would bear Bella’s jealousy, for Celia Hart’s bed contained more than lithe limbs and warm breasts. She was the widow of one of Havant’s more prominent parchment makers, and maintained an interest in the trade that made the town wealthy. That interest kept her involved in the comings and goings of the place, and few rumours passed through without reaching her delicate ears. Lyle reached for the loaf-laden trencher. “The commander at Havant has few men to spare.”
“Then the escort will be weak?” Grumm called from the hearth, where he was busily dusting the large pewter plates that shone like silver moons atop its mantel.
“Indeed. They bring the salt in bags. A single wagon.”
“What if it rains?” Bella asked.
Grumm paused in his duty to reply, “They’ll have it under oiled sheets. That’s how we used to move the stuff.”
Lyle eyed the Cornishman’s work, appreciating his attention to detail. The Red Lion was the Ironside Highwayman’s bolthole, his hideaway, just off the Portsmouth to London Road at a little hamlet called Rake. It was ideally situated, a bridgehead on the highway from which he could attack the machinery of Goffe’s administration, but it was also Lyle’s second livelihood, his second line of defence from hunger when illegal pickings were slim, and he was glad the others, whose aliases officially owned the modest plot, took as much pride in it as he. The inn had ample stabling, a well-appointed and homely taproom, and lodgings for a dozen. He sat back, threading his fingers behind his head, and revelled in the contentment he had once considered unattainable. “One cartload, escorted by a small party of musketeers commanded by a fellow of meagre repute.”
Grumm had stopped now, tossing his rag over a stool. He planted bony fists on his hips. “All this risk for sacks o’ salt, Major.”
“You would have us take aim at the more lucrative prizes?” Lyle said. He winked at Bella. “There are no ships hereabouts to lure onto rocks.”
Grumm’s ashen face coloured dramatically. “I was never a wrecker, God rot you!” he snarled, stabbing the air with a bluish finger. “A smuggler only.”
Lyle laughed. “That was all I meant.” He pushed some of the bread into the side of his mouth. “You have a smuggler’s heart, Eustace. You would catch the pike and let the stickleback swim free.”
“I simply would not advise takin’ on a company of bleedin’ muskets for such mean reward.”
Lyle finished chewing and waited for his friend’s bluster to ebb. He leaned in on his elbows, propping his chin on his hands. “For what do we fight, Eustace?”
Grumm shrugged, as though the question was foolish. “When my... past... went awry, I was destined for the noose.” His rheumy eyes drifted into the middle-distance, and Lyle knew he was dragging the scene from the depths of memory. Grumm had been driven out of his homeland by underworld rivals, only to find himself snared by lawmen on an anonymous French road. It was only the intervention of a gaunt-faced Englishman that had saved his neck from a fatal stretch. The man — a wanderer with grief in his gaze — had appeared like a twilight wraith, armed with a long sword, an unusual, double-barrelled pistol and a vicious looking war-hammer, and he had seen off Grumm’s persecutors as though they were nothing but a gaggle of belligerent geese. “You saved me, Major.”
Lyle smiled. “You fight for me, Eustace. And I value that. But I fight for vengeance. Only vengeance. At night I dream of what was lost, and by day I look to hurt those who took it from me. Ireton is dead, but Oliver Cromwell is not. Francis Maddocks is not. William Goffe is not.”
“But salt?”
“If I could hurt the Lord Protector I would, but I cannot. I am no more irritating than the warts on his face. So I am reduced to small victories. I cannot bring down the government, so I must make a nuisance of myself to those who adhere to it, profit from it. Spike a cannon, though I can never destroy the battery. Salt is life for a garrison of hungry men, Eustace, which makes it important to Major General Goffe.” His palms suddenly hurt, and he realised he had been holding his fists tightly bunched. He uncurled the fingers, lacing them beneath his chin. “And if it is important to him, then it is vital to me.”
Bella nodded firmly. “And us.” She twisted to look back at the old man. “Right?”
Grumm sighed. “Foolish.”
Lyle pursed his lips as he drew a map in his mind’s eye. “They will not travel far in one day.”
Grumm snorted scorn as he glanced out of the window at the snow-dusted courtyard. “Not a road worthy o’ the name. Especially with so heavy a bounty.”
“Once they are across the hills,” Lyle went on, imagining the route north from Havant, “they will rest at Buriton, like as not. The village boasts more than one tavern to accommodate them.”
“Then a short dash to the Mad Ox at Petersfield,” Grumm warned. “And he’ll see them safe to Winchester from there.”
“Then we cut them off beforehand,” said Lyle. “Before Buriton.”
“How will we know which road they take?” Bella asked, her keen eyes darting between the two men. “There are many choices northward.”
Lyle nodded, closing his eyes as he studied his private map. There was a network of routes criss-crossing the land between the coast and Petersfield like a sprawling cobweb, and, in summer at least, a traveller could select whichever took his fancy. But in deep winter? Lyle placed himself at the head of the convoy, imagining the young officer’s possibilities. “Most are impassable with a heavy cart. I’d wager they will travel either by Finchdean or through the hills at Butser and Wardown.”
Grumm’s face convulsed as his tick held momentary sway. “The Finchdean road is better,” he finally managed to say.
“Aye,” Lyle agreed, “but it is perilously close to the Forest of Bere. The greenwood is infested with footpads.”
“Like us,” Bella grinned.
Lyle flashed her a crooked smile. “Not exactly like us.”
“The convoy has protection,” Grumm went on sombrely.
“Enough to risk the forest?” Lyle enquired of the smoke-black eves.
Grumm screwed up his leathery features. “You tell me.”
What had Celia Hart purred in his ear? Lyle turned her words over in his mind. Eventually he looked at Grumm and shook his head. “They will avoid Bere.”
Grumm lifted a hand to his beard and tugged at the wiry strands, twisting them into white bands about his fingers. “The hills it is, then. God help us.”
5
Gravel Bottom, Hampshire, December 1655
Of all God’s many phenomena, it was mist Samson Lyle loved the most. He had learnt to embrace it during the wars, when a lingering skein could hide a pike and a thick pall might even smother the glow of a match tip. Mist was the seasoned campaigner’s friend and the raw recruit’s waking nightmare. And Lyle’s quarry, he had discovered on his reconnaissance between Mistress Hart’s thighs, were as raw as he might have hoped. He licked his lips slowly, moist skin tingling in the cold air, and squinted through the murk towards the unseen curve of the road. He forced his breathing into a slow, shallow, quiet rhythm, listening for the tell-tale clank of traces and chains. “Ireton was one for a good mist,” he said to no-one in particular.
Beside him, Eustac
e Grumm tugged his scarf up to hide his features, and spoke through the muffling cloth. “Ireton fought with the New Model. He’d have won whatever the weather.”
An image of town walls — tattered and crumbling — skittered across Lyle’s mind, and he gritted his teeth. “It was misty at Limerick.”
Grumm cleared his throat awkwardly. “Star and Tyrannous are tethered back in the trees, just as you asked.”
Lyle nodded absently, still dreaming of Ireland. His lungs involuntarily convulsed, as though the deep, painful breath might ward off the memory. It did not. The heady, metallic odour of blood filled his nostrils as it always did. The stench of bloated corpses and burning thatch. He had turned his back on the all-conquering English army when the massacres had begun. But his abandonment of the cause — of his friend, General Ireton — had lit a powder train that had burned its way through his life, through everything he loved. Ireton’s swift, brutal revenge had spared nothing, leaving Lyle with wealth measured only in regret and guilt and fury. Ireland would remain a wound on his mind, festering and painful, never to heal.
Noises climbed out from the misty afternoon, searing away Lyle’s melancholy like flame-bathed brands. He glanced down at the pistol in his hand, already loaded and primed. Its maker, a renowned Rotterdam gunsmith, had been a marvel, a genius of the craft. Lyle squeezed the stock, reassured by its familiar contours. It was hefty, longer by a hand’s length than its English cousin and bulkier in its unique design, but perfectly balanced for all that. The weapon had two barrels —- a rarity in itself — but this one was particularly unusual for its single lock, cock and flint. One barrel was set above the other, with a release lever that would shift them on an axis when one charge was fired, revolving the twin muzzles so that the second might be immediately presented and discharged. It was an object of formidable beauty, and had become the mark of the Ironside Highwayman.
“The time is upon us,” Lyle muttered. “Bella had better be ready.”
Highwayman- The Complete Campaigns Page 12