“Simple enough. Kept it in a little travelling chest.” Bella gave an impish cackle. “Men like that do not need to hide their things. They’re untouchable, ain’t they? Who’d dare burgle them?” She winked at Amelia, who was watching with apparent astonishment as the little girl produced a gold-bound bible from her saddlebag. “Don’t occur there might be a cuckoo in the nest.”
Lyle took the gleaming object and thrust it into the folds of his cloak. “How fares the lad?”
Bella pulled an exaggeratedly sad expression. “Poor Jeremy!” She tapped her knuckles at her temple. “A sore head, I shouldn’t wonder but he’ll live. Now then,” she clapped her hands and looked expectantly at Lyle, “we cannot stroll onto Portsea Island, Samson, so I hope to God you’ve cooked up a decent plan.”
#
Portsbridge Fort, above Ports Creek, Hampshire
Maddocks dug his spurs into his mount’s heaving flanks as the fort came into view. He had led a hastily mustered troop of forty out of Warblington Castle in something akin to blind panic, sending half up and over the hills, the rest staying with him on the marshy coast road and now they came together again in a flurry of hoof-beats and bellows. No one, it seemed, had been captured, nor so much as spotted. With frustration turning to rage, he directed his vengeful harquebusiers towards the narrow crossing onto Portsea Island.
Maddocks had known they would not find the book as soon as he had learned of Lyle’s involvement. Why would such a man embroil himself with the likes of Whistler, the ever-sceptical Captain Beck had asked? The answer had rung like a bell in Maddocks’s head. The Vulgate bible. And even as he had wrenched his horse’s head about and galloped back into the decrepit castle’s inner ward, he had known the golden book would not be where he had left it. There was nothing for it, except to rouse the men and hunt the malefactors to ground.
The high earthwork loomed above the road, dominating the landscape as it had for at least two centuries. The passage of time had weathered the rampart, stealing a few feet from the summit and filling parts of the defensive ditch but all that was counterweighted easily enough by the rows of fresh stakes, pale at the newly sharpened tips, that protruded like the teeth of some monstrous maw. The fort was shaped like a star, its high bulwarks reminiscent of the sconces Maddocks had seen at London, Worcester and Newark, yet this formidable obstacle was not designed to conduct or obstruct a siege but rather to protect the single crossing onto Portsea Island, thus giving landward protection to the crucial naval installations beyond.
Maddocks hauled on the reins as he reached the broad timber bridge over the ditch, noting the ominous black muzzles of half-a-dozen heavy guns on the rampart immediately above. His horse whinnied as it wheeled, great clods of mud flinging in all directions and he barked at the pair of sentries standing before the huge open gates. Their eyes wandered over him, taking in the cut of his expensive clothes, the gleam of his polished plate and the lion’s head embroidered onto the saffron scarf. His pennant was coming, lofted on a long pole by a young cornet but they did not need to see the device to know with whom they were dealing. They stepped aside smartly and the troopers thundered across the ditch and into the open expanse of the fort, which proved to be a flat plateau containing a gravel track and a single wooden building that served as the soldiers’ quarters. Told to take their ease, the troopers found space to dismount and went to sit on the grass, fishing hard biscuit, dried meat or wads of fragrant sotweed from their bags.
On the far side of the fort, in a reflection of the landward gates, the doorway above the creek gaped open, the flanking guards taking a markedly languid approach to their duties. Maddocks, still mounted, approached them, Captain Beck a few yards in his wake. “Riders,” he called down to a swarthy sergeant who leaned nonchalantly against a halberd that was decorated with brightly coloured tassels. “Three, perhaps four. Have you seen them?”
The sergeant sucked at his black whiskers for a moment, then gave a noncommittal twitch of the shoulders. “Seen plenty o’ folk since sun-up, sir.”
“This party,” Maddocks replied brusquely, “is led by a criminal. Tall, green eyes, into his late twenties. He is accompanied by a haggardly old clapperdudgeon and two females.”
The sergeant glanced in amusement at his trio of subordinates. “Circus troupe, by the sounds of it,” he ventured in an accent native to the West Midlands, “though we haven’t seen the like.”
Maddocks sucked his teeth in frustration. “Brigands, all”
“Lady outlaws, sir?” The sergeant’s surprise was evident and he looked round at his men. “We’d not let in that kind of miscreant, would we, boys? Goodness me, no.”
Captain Beck asked, “What think you, Colonel? Back on the road?”
Maddocks adjusted his cloak, buying time for consideration. He let his horse walk between the sentries and under the arch, to look upon the mossy blocks of stone that formed the bridge onto the island. Either side, the waters of the creek ran fast and murky, foaming thick where it parted around the base of each pier. He twisted to look back at Beck, who had come up to occupy the arch. “If Lyle had merely freed that flea-bitten little weasel then maybe. But he stole the bible.”
Beck’s fleshy face screwed into an expression of incredulity. “He’s gone elsewhere, sir. Up country to sell his ill-gotten loot.”
“Marek Nowak has one of the highwayman’s gang,” Maddocks answered, his tone firming with rapidly increasing certainty. “Lyle will not stand for such a thing, I’d stake my life on it. He has stolen the bible in order to return it. Exchange it for his fellow criminal.”
“Then where is the blackguard?” Beck said in exasperation.
They were interrupted by the sergeant’s voice, orders spilling loud and fast as he hurried to direct newly arrived traffic towards the crossing. Maddocks went back to look upon the commotion. Several wagons, stacked high with wool bales, had come down off the hill, it seemed and, funnelling through the earthwork, they would now need the cavalrymen to move aside. Between them and with the sergeant’s profuse apologies as accompaniment, Maddocks and Beck managed to corral their resting troopers onto their horses and into a double file. When they were ready to ride, the colonel let his cornet come up, raising the colour for all to see and led them in a clattering chorus across the creek and onto Portsea Island. The hunt would resume in earnest.
Because the wagons had given him an idea.
#
Portsmouth, Hampshire
It had been years since Lyle had ventured down to the coast, where the Solent lashed the shore and the gulls wheeled and cackled but Portsmouth was just as he remembered. As the afternoon leaked away, the light gradually washing out, the cart had squeezed its way into the town, waved through the ornate gateway that was set into a huge, flag-topped and crenelated bastion, the jaded-looking sentries offering the most cursory of glances as they processed a line of vehicles that ran into the dozens. The muddy road beyond the long defensive wall had instantly become paved, sporadic steadings giving way to tightly packed terraces, thatch-work replaced by tiles in an evident effort to negate the effects of fire. The streets were busy, the bellows of barrow boys and basket wielders vying with purveyors of ribbon and string, eggs and milk, apples and leather and shoes.
All this Lyle and his companions heard, rather than witnessed, for theirs was a journey glimpsed via the chinks of light between their covering of hemp bales. In other circumstances the commandeering of the vehicle would have been a source of deep regret, for he had genuinely sympathised with the unwitting driver. The poor fellow had been taking his ease, eyes firmly shut, as he drank the tobacco smoke and let his cares drift into the crisp air. What a rude awakening it had been to feel the cruel press of cold metal as Lyle had pushed his pistol’s twin muzzles into the bulging folds of skin at the nape of the terrified man’s neck.
“You’re travelling to the docks,” Lyle had whispered into the man’s rapidly reddening ear. It had not been a question, for where else was a huge cons
ignment of hemp destined?
“Aye,” had been the murmured response, from one too frightened to nod, “to the new ropery.”
And so, with the promise that the driver’s brains would be splattered over his cargo if he gave them away, the Ironside Highwayman and his accomplices became stowaways.
“Baltic hemp, out of Königsberg,” the driver, doing his utmost to convey a calmness that he cannot possibly have felt, had explained as the chief sentry at the Portsbridge Fort had questioned him. “Comes into Port of London and I takes it out to Chatham, then down here. Makes the finest cordage on God’s earth.”
“I’m sure it does,” had been the bored-sounding reply and then, to Lyle’s palpable relief, they were out and away, the dray’s wheels bouncing alarmingly over the stone bridge and onto the low-lying island, immediately picking up the road that would snake its way through village and field, all the way to Portsmouth and the sea. The gaps between the bales allowed Lyle to see the high bulwarks of the fort sink into the distance, eventually replaced by the scarp of Portsdown Hill and an empty sky that was a uniform grey. Then it had been a matter of nervous patience. Of waiting and listening. But, despite the occasional pocket of heavy traffic and a couple of mud-stuck wheels, they had made it to the town without significant hindrance.
Portsmouth itself was a bastion of civilisation at the southwest corner of Portsea Island. As the dray bounced and juddered along High Street, the frontages of shops and taverns raced past Lyle’s little peephole in a blur. Fishmongers were abundant, along with net makers and boatwrights. There were at least two coopers, a large smithy, a chandlery, a bakery and so many more. Storehouses for raw fleeces stood shoulder to shoulder with brewhouses and tanneries and everywhere folk walked and rode, clogging the street, while sailors stood in the doorways of drinking dens and young lads darted hither and thither bearing parcels, goods and messages. The stink of the place reminded Lyle of London, a pungent concoction of seaweed and sewage, while the noise of lowing livestock and haggling shop-keeps overlaid all.
They trundled on, Lyle silently noting The Greyhound tavern, in which the Duke of Buckingham had been murdered during the old king’s reign. It was the first of his signposts. In quick succession came the second, the large edifice of the Guildhall, its painted timbers dark in the fading light. Immediately he thumped a fist against the side of the cart.
“Here,” he whispered to the others, “is where Master Spendlove should be.”
Without further discussion, they waited for the dray to rumble off the cobbles and into a muddy side road, where it immediately came to a halt. Cautiously they pushed the bales aside and emerged like larvae from a dung hill, wriggling free and shuffling on their backsides to the end of the cart. The driver, eager to be rid of his unwanted cargo, had already leapt down from his seat and unhooked the rear panel, so that the four stowaways could jump clear. With Lyle’s contrite thanks ringing in his ears, the man closed the vehicle, gave a surly nod and clambered up.
In moments the huge dray had juddered into life, hemp bales tumbling and resettling like a disturbed leaf pile as it rounded the corner. In the street, all fell to silence. Rows of narrow, two-storey homes flanked the strip of mud on which Lyle and his companions found themselves.
“What now, Samson?” Bella asked.
Lyle opened his mouth to answer but someone else spoke first.
“Praise be,” Wardley Spendlove said as he came out of one of the low doorways. His mouth twitched into a smile at Lyle, growing to a delighted beam when his gaze fell on one of the other faces. “Oh, Jesu, it is my Amelia. Praise be.”
A tear welled at the corner of Amelia’s eye, trembling there for a moment, before plunging down her cheek. “Papa,” she whispered and ran to embrace him.
#
Night had well and truly fallen when Maddocks called off the search.
The colonel, as a matter of efficacy as well as dignity, had perched atop his skittish, snorting destrier and overseen a methodical afternoon’s work while his troopers, on foot and cursing their ill-fortune, had waylaid as many wagons, traps and coaches as they could manage along the road from Wymering to Portsmouth. Maddocks had ridden up and down the wide thoroughfare, scanning every face, for only he would know his former friend on sight. But the stretch, however flat and unobstructed, was all of five miles, busy as any road outside the capital and the task’s futility had quickly become apparent.
The troop filed through the gate at Portsmouth’s main bastion as a bright half-moon, smudged by fingers of cloud, spread silvery film over houses and battlements. With Maddocks, Captain Beck and the cornet at the fore, they made their beleaguered way south, along St Thomas Street to the huge Romanesque church dedicated to the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury after whom the street was named.
“Took some iron during the wars,” Beck said.
Maddocks glanced at his captain, realising the man was staring at St Thomas’s large central tower. It was difficult to see in the gathering gloom but the high walls were jagged in places, as if giant jaws had taken great bites out of the stonework. He nodded. “True enough. From our side, God forgive us, when the king’s men held the town. The malignants used the tower as a lookout post, for its vantage cannot be bettered.” When they reached the church, he signalled for the column to veer left, cutting across the junction with High Street so that they headed south and east. “There was no alternative but for our gunners over at Gosport to subject the place to bombardment. The nave was dire harmed too, though I pray one day the Parliament will see to its improvement.”
“The conflict spared no place,” Beck muttered sombrely.
“Nor any person,” Maddocks replied, unable to keep his mind from wandering to a former major in Henry Ireton’s regiment. That man had been his ally once, trusted and valued but the events of the last decade had tainted him, corrupted him. It was a point of bitter regret for Maddocks but also of stinging betrayal. Even as he considered the souring of his relationship with Samson Lyle, his heart hardened, his resolve to capture the fugitive setting a new fire in his belly. “See there?”
Beck touched at heel to his horse and the animal quickened to keep pace with the colonel. “Domus Dei?”
“As was,” Maddocks confirmed. They were approaching another impressive complex of buildings, some constructed in the pale dressed stone of Norman churches and castles, while others, like new buds sprouting from an ancient bough, were made up of timber and brick, painted brilliant white and adorned with huge windows, ornate chimney stacks and smartly tiled roofs. It was an incongruous hotch-potch of a site, set just within the easternmost line of the town wall, all enclosed by a well-tended green and several large, timber outbuildings. “Domus Dei,” he repeated the name. “God’s House. An almshouse and hospice before the Dissolution.”
“The new parts are the Governor’s residence?”
“A modern mansion,” Maddocks said with distaste. “Slapped on the side. Government House, we are now to call it.” He shrugged. “Whatever its name, it has roaring hearths and plenty of good stabling. We shall dwell therein and see to our cursed quarry on the morrow.”
Beck, evidently content with the prospect of food and lodgings, sat straighter in the saddle. “How will we locate him?”
“Marek Nowak. It is too late, too damned dark to ransack every smuggler’s haunt and drinking ken in Portsmouth but he and his men will be here somewhere and they’ll prove a sight simpler to track down than Lyle and his little parcel of thieves.” They turned into the grounds of the Governor’s House, hooves suddenly loud on the cinder path that would take them to the gates. “Tomorrow, Captain,” Maddocks said, mood beginning to lighten with renewed hope. “We shall prevail, have no doubt. Find the sailor and we shall find the outlaw.”
#
“They lodge at The Bridge tavern,” Wardley Spendlove said as he took his place on a low bench, leaning over his knees to enjoy the warming flames. “I followed them all the way to its threshold.” His nose and
upper lip crumpled in disgust. “It is out on The Point, so called Spice Island by the locals. A den of iniquity, full of houses of ill-repute, overflowing with strong ale and more illegal stills than you could possibly sup from. It is a lewd, violent place of danger and temptation.”
Eustace Grumm, at the other end of the bench, gave a salacious chuckle. “Sounds wondrous.”
It was pitch dark outside, the clarity of the night sky letting a hard chill descend. The only light in the fisherman’s home came from the hearth, dancing and crackling as logs blackened while hands and faces were held out for as long as could be tolerated. Bella and Amelia sat cross-legged on the rushes, either side of the chimney breast, while squeezed on the bench between the two old men, Lyle asked, “What is Botolph’s condition?”
Spendlove’s features tightened at whatever unhappy image the question conjured. “He lives,” he said simply.
Lyle took his roasting palms away from the heat and rubbed them across his freshly shaved cheeks. “Then let us consider extricating the fellow.”
“Thorny task, that,” replied the owner of their new bolthole. In order to safeguard the man, who lived alone in what was a clean and well-appointed dwelling of just two rooms, Lyle had introduced him simply as Tom. Distant kin to Lyle’s late wife, the fisherman – as white-bearded as Grumm, if not nearly as thin – had welcomed Spendlove when the old man had appeared at his door. Now that the group had come together under his roof, he provided a much-needed fire, fresh bread and a dish of turbot and mushrooms. They would sleep on the floor, for there were no beds to spare but that mattered not a jot now that they were warm and full-bellied.
Highwayman- The Complete Campaigns Page 26