Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  "Ah, now that is something I may be able to help you with," Edward said as he moved towards the now thinning reception line. "Thanks to Warwick, the navy has just delivered a shipload of small guns to London. Though they are a random lot of surplus and old stock, there is bound to be some amongst them that will interest you."

  Daniel watched the new Earl of Manchester join the line. The greeting line was a testament to how inbred the rich and powerful of this kingdom were. The Earl of Essex was the first cousin of the Earl of Holland who was brother to the Earl of Warwick who was father-in-law to the Earl of Manchester, who... well ... the circle of blood and wealth went around and around, and the circle of land and power consumed most of London and much of the counties between here and The Wash.

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  The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014

  Chapter 11 - Warning Hampden in London in November 1642

  Daniel watched all of the earls in the line shake each other's hands, and faun all over the Earl of Essex. Under his breath he whispered, "Heaven help the reformer's good cause with that ass in charge of the army." As he watched, the line broke up and the few women in it took the arms of the Earls to accompany them to dining room. There was some confusion when the guest of honor grabbed Britta's arm instead of the countesses.

  "Bloody fat old rake," Daniel hissed knowing that Assex would take every opportunity to grope her.

  "That is better than I would have called him," came a voice from behind him. Daniel turned quickly. It was John Hampden.

  "John, you've missed the reception line," Daniel told him as he grabbed him in a greeting well worthy of a brother-in-arms. The man was dressed every bit like a school master and not at all like the successful colonel of the Berkshire Greenjackets.

  "On purpose. I was more likely to have pasted my fist into that fat mouth rather than shake his hand. Do you know what his reaction was when I reported that Rupert and his flying army had butchered some of the wounded that Essex had left behind at Kineton."

  "Let me guess," Daniel replied. "That you didn't do enough to protect the wounded that he and the main army had abandoned."

  "Worse. He took me to task for using grape shot against the king's noble gentlemen. He has removed my regiment from the duty of protecting his cannon, and he has issued orders that no cannon are to target the king's cavalry without his express permission. Unbelievable, yes."

  "Totally believable. Wasn't it you that told me that Assex was balancing the need to defeat the king with the need to not anger the lords by killing their sons."

  "Well put. It must have been me," Hampden replied with a chuckle, but the humour was short lived. "Well I suppose I should go and be seated. Has Pym arrived yet?"

  "Yes, but he was carried in on a palanquin. I wish that man would replace his costly physicians with someone's grandmother. The women of my clan would have him on his feet and as right as rain within a week."

  "This is London, remember, where sunlight comes out of the assholes of physicians, and the rain is grey with soot."

  Daniel walked with him into the house, and took the opportunity to explain the situation with Lindsey. Hampden didn't ask to be convinced, but just agreed to help in any way he could. This gave Daniel the time to talk to him about Teesa's vision. Not that he could say it was a vision of a Seer, not to such a rigid Presbyterian.

  "At Kineton I saw you fight of some skirmishers who were trying to silence you," Daniel began.

  "Yes I remember it well. They almost succeeded. It was lucky for me that my third rank of musketeers had just finished loading."

  "Do you remember anything peculiar about those skirmishers?"

  "Not really. Why do you ask?"

  After the battle, after I was safe home again, I had a dream about it. In my dream I remembered that the skirmishers were wearing costly steel armour painted with a black falcon. Was that just a dream, or was their armour actually like that?"

  Hampden was shaking his head. "It all happened so fast. They broke off from the main charge and came at me without warning. Is it important?"

  "For you ... vital."

  Hampden stopped walking and leaned against a wall and closed his eyes in thought. "Sorry, I can't envision them, which is unusual for me because I have an almost perfect memory."

  "That explains a lot," Daniel thought to himself, but did not speak it for fear of interrupting the man's thoughts. Hampden was scary smart.

  "No, I can't see them. I do remember that despite being shot at that none of them lost their saddles, or dropped their sabres. Sabres. They were carrying sabres, and only steel armour could defeat a musket ball."

  "My memory exactly," Daniel said. "I don't think they were skirmishers. Please try to remember how they looked. It's important."

  "Perhaps it is just because you said so, but I think I do remember a black insignia ... and matching cloaks with fur collars."

  "Wolf's fur?"

  "It could have been. But ... but that would mean..."

  "Exactly. That they were the prince's lifeguard. His chosen men from Germany. So the next question you must ask is why they were being risked by using them as lowly skirmishers?"

  Hampden's eyes widened. "The prince wanted me dead. Me personally."

  "If I were you John, I would stop leading from the front and stay far away from that bloody devil prince."

  "Well I'll certainly ask my Greenjackets about the incident," Hampden replied, "and let them decide the rest. Thanks for the warning." They had almost reached the double doors to the dining hall, and they shook hands and separated before anyone inside the great hall could see them together.

  "Where are your Greenjackets?" Daniel asked as an after thought.

  "Garrisoning Uxbridge, which is west along the great road. Essex's way of punishing them for the sin of firing grape shot at Prince Rupert and the rest of the king's gentlemen

  The rowdy noise spilling out from the hall came with a spicing of wool and body odour and tobacco smoke. Since there were no wives present, and since most of these men were mightily relieved to be once again safe in London, the fine meal that cook was preparing would be washed down with gushers of wine and hardly tasted. Once the food was cleared away, then the real drinking would begin. During his nearly ten years of being in the business of importing and selling fine liquor and fine wine it had always bothered him that most of the costly stuff was carelessly swilled down rather than savoured.

  He sighed and went to find the two sergeants of the guard. Now that all of the noble politicians had arrived and were safely inside it was time to plan for their leaving in safety. He grabbed the first sergeant he came to and asked, "Does the local Captain of the curfew watch owe you any favours?"

  "Aye, that he does. Many's the cold night when he's warmed hisself with my welcome. What would you be wanting of him."

  "We will soon be facing the problem of getting a mob of drunken nobles safely back to their homes. I'd like to hear from the watch about how they would prefer it to happen."

  "I'll go and fetch him before he starts his rounds, shall I. Should I mention to him that it would be safer to move these nobs after the curfew has cleared the streets?"

  The sergeant had been reading his mind. "Nay, let him come up with that idea for himself. The bite he will charge us will be less if it is his idea." Daniel patted the man on the shoulder. "Good man." The sergeants bulbous nose was hidden by a smile, and he turned and grabbed a lackey to go with him to the watch house.

  The other sergeant was still at the cloak room organizing a special guard for the large fortune in fur lined cloaks, crafted pistols, and dress swords. Daniel jested with the guards, "Believe it or not, it will be harder to give them back to them than it was to take them away. They'll be as drunk as a..."

  "Lord," an old soldier interrupted with a chortle.

  "... and beyond knowing which was theirs." Daniel finished. Of the sergeant he asked, '"Did the countess give you any specia
l orders concerning the safety of the serving women."

  "Nay, I just assumed they would be carted off back to the Westminster house as soon as the siding was done."

  "Well this party is going to last until well after the curfew, so they'll have to sleep here."

  "Well there's beds, but no linens. We moved the household to Westminster last week, cause you can't keep this draughty old palace warm."

  "Is there a place where we can lock them up and guard them?" Daniel asked.

  "Lock up yer daughter," the old soldier began singing the popular alehouse song. "The cocks be swollen with ale and they'll be pokin' where they oughtna."

  "The servants quarters on the kitchen level. It's a wing unto itself so the connecting door is stout and can be barred," the sergeant replied.

  "Perfect. Tell your men that the first time they see one of the guests bending a girl over, they are to round up all the women and lock them in that wing."

  "What about the girls that are willing to bend over to pick up a good coin?" asked the sergeant.

  "Sally was a strumpet and she earned her purse at night," the old soldier continued. "I've forgotten the next bit." Some other guards sang the next line out in sour harmony.

  "Shut it," the sergeant told them, and they did.

  "They'll all thank you for locking them up, eventually." Daniel told all of them. "Many of these nobs have been living in army camps for months. God only knows what worms and vermin and pox they are carrying home to their wives." It was important that this news travel through the ranks of the guards so they would not be teased out of locking the pretty ones up.

  "Should we round up the hostesses too?" the old soldier asked, suddenly more serious.

  "Especially the hostesses," Daniel replied. "All we need is for one nob woman to be raped by a nob drunk, and the Reform Party will be split asunder. Is there somewhere more fitting to lock them up?"

  The sergeant thought for a while, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Any of the upstairs rooms, but all of them are cold and unfurnished. They won't thank us. I suppose the countess's suite would be best." He ordered two of his men to go and lay lusty fires in both havens to warm them up and to stay with those fires to make sure they didn't burn the house down.

  "I'll go tell Cook," Daniel said and made his way towards the back staircase.

  When this house was built the back staircase really should have been made wider. It was the main route between the huge kitchen below, and the dining hall that took up most of what must have been the original house before the newer wings were added. The staircase was now packed with women carrying heavy steaming dishes up, and empty ones down. By the looks of the women going down, it would not be long before all of these women would be locked up. The skirts and bodices of the younger women were askew and stray wisps of hair were escaping their bonnets.

  He overheard the one in front of him in the down queue say, "Don't you dare, not for just a shilling. As they down more cups, the price is sure to go up. Why risk your position for just a shilling?"

  "Why risk the French pox for just a shilling, more like it." Daniel hissed into her ear. "Or don't you believe what they say about the women that travel with the army." The lass miss-stepped and he grabbed her from behind to steady her. If she had fallen, she would have taken out those carrying the fourth course up the stairs.

  He found the cook supervising the garnishing of the fifth course, the venison. She was a whirlwind in her kitchen, but because of that everything was orderly and in control. "Oh dearie me," she was fretting, as any artist would fret when showing her work off. "It's not proper to serve just eight courses. It should be twelve. And this venison has not been aged long enough to remove its gaminess."

  Daniel had come up behind the big woman and now he whispered in her ear, "They'll all smack their lips and give you a toast, love. They've been eating day old horse for months."

  "Danny, I've not the time for your flirting," she gave him a buss on the cheek without touching him with her greasy hands, "but thank you. If you want something to eat, then help yourself from the platters coming back down."

  "Later love. I've just come to tell you that is already getting pretty wild in the hall so I have given orders to lock up the women as soon as any of your girls are accosted."

  "Their safety is my charge," she said with a stubborn look. She glanced over at the young ones trying to tuck themselves back together before taking another platter up. "Yes perhaps it's for the best. You don't mean myself and my senior women of course. There will still be the food to be put away else the rats will be into it."

  "You especially, love. Which of these lords wouldn't leap at the chance to abduct the most talented cook in the kingdom?"

  "Oh go on with you. I'll pass the word to my girls. Where are they to go?"

  "The servant's quarters. There's a fire being laid there now. If you see the countess before I do, let her know." The cook was already back to work displaying her venison and she waved a greasy hand to him without looking. Daniel decided it would be faster to go out the back door and around outside than joining the up queue on the stairs, but first he went to check the heft of the door to the servant's wing.

  "Seem's stout enough," he said to the guardsman who was blowing on some tinder in the fireplace.

  The man coughed back an "Aye".

  "When the women begin arriving you are to keep them here. Once they are in, they do not leave. None of them, no matter what you are offered to let them pass. Understood?" Again a cough. "And if the nobs come looking for them, you are to shut this door in their face and bar it ... before there is any bullying. Understood?" Another cough. "Open the damper man else you'll have me coughing too."

  One of the most recent additions to this house was a small raised terrace so that folk could step out of the funk of the great hall and take the fresh air. Since that meant there was a door, most of the men on the terrace were guards. As he came up the outside steps to reach them, they nudged their caps with their forefingers in a polite salute due any guest. "Oh it's you sir," one said. "all is secure here, sir."

  Daniel told them that if any women used the terrace door to flee any man, that they were to be protected and taken to the kitchen, but without the use of force against the men. They replied that the sergeant had already given them the order, so he didn't explain it further. "Danny, is that you?" came a voice from the far railing where two men were leaning out over the garden below. The voice was Oliver's.

  "Ollie, so they didn't seat you after all," he said as he walked closer.

  "Britta arranged a seat beside John here, with the excuse that he could use my voice to call out his thoughts above the general noise."

  The other man turned around. It was John Pym, the leader of the Reform Party, and he was wiping some spittle from his lips. "Still not keeping your food down, John?" Daniel asked. "Do you remember the thin lass, Teesa?"

  "Warwick's huntress? Not a lass who is easy to forget. She was grace in motion, in the saddle or out."

  "She sent some stomach tincture with me to give you. A few drops, thrice daily, she says. It's made from a type of wormwood that doesn't give you nightmares like absinthe does. Just as bitter though, so best taken in ale."

  "But my physician's don't believe in what they call witches remedies," Pym replied.

  "Teesa is no witch," Daniel said hurriedly. "She is skilled at husbandry, which means she knows what works and what doesn't. The tincture works. She dosed me with it when I came back from the wars. Set me right within a day, but she says I have to keep taking it for ten to be sure."

  "Have it sent to my house, ugh, in the early morning before my physician arrives to plague me."

  "Danny," Oliver said, "we've won the delay in Willoughby's release. Even Essex now agrees, and that despite the old Earl having been his lifelong friend."

  "What won it for us. Vengeance for the sacking and looting of the country houses of the party members, like Broughton Castle?"

  "It was so a
rgued, but not successfully," Oliver replied. "No, Hampden won it for us by saying nothing until just before the decision was to be made. He spoke last and directly to Essex. Your grace, he says. If you are ever captured, we will need an earl in our keeping with which to bargain your release. At the moment we have none other than Willoughby. Without him at the ready, the delay may cost you your neck."

  Daniel hooted with laughter, and even Pym joined in the mirth at Hampden's foxiness. "What did Essex say in answer to that."

  "That the Earl of Lindsey had been one of his closest friends and he will string up the man who shot him down," Cromwell said this as a warning for Daniel to keep the identity of Lindsey's killer to himself. "And then he went on to say that he owes it to the father and the family to keep the son as safe as possible during these troubled times. That Willoughby will be kept healthy and safe while he is our guest until perhaps next summer."

  "Six months!" Daniel exclaimed and then lowered his voice. "That will have the villages of the fens toasting the general ... and with ale made from barley grown in the old earl's fields." He decided to tarry and talk with old Pym because there was no better source of 'true' news than the man who scripted many of the columns in the local news sheets that doled out the parliament's version of the news to Londoners.

  "The king has refused to speak with some of the commissioners we sent to him. They were sent only to discuss a temporary ceasefire while a long term resolution is decided," Pym told them. "It is all a ploy to buy him more time to plan his attack on London. We already know that he is not coming down the Great Northern Road, but the Great West Road. His army have moved from Oxford to Reading, and Prince Rupert's flying squads are worrying Windsor."

  "Windsor, well that makes sense," Oliver said. "That grand old fortress not only controls the flow of barges up and down the Thames, and carts along the Western highways, but within it's walls there is a comfortable palace. We must keep Windsor from him at all costs."