Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  "I have sent that same message this morning to Colonel Venn who commands the garrison on our behalf. I also told him to keep his men on the walls and not to sally out to engage Prince Rupert. Meanwhile the king has suggested that Windsor castle would the perfect place to hold peace negotiations and that he should be allowed residence."

  "If he goes to ground in Windsor we will never get him out again," Daniel grumbled. "Rupert could sally forth from there and cut us off from the southwest, and knowing him he will turn the Thames red with the blood of innocents." He then told Pym about Rupert’s continual use of the German tactic of Schrecken ... terror.

  "No wonder my good friend John has written me a warning letter specifically about him." Pym meant John Hampden. "I fear that once the prince has been denied Windsor that the towns around Windsor will feel his wrath. Certainly the towns that lie between our garrisons at Windsor and at Kingston-upon-Thames. Towns near Staines. Hopefully the Kingston garrison will protect them. We have over 3,000 men there."

  "That devil prince was born to be hung," Daniel said, "and the sooner the better. So what are you going to do about the Great West Road? You can't let Charlie's army move along it. That will hand him all of the towns to the west of London."

  "Denzil Holles and Lord Brooke have garrisoned their London bands at Brentford. That is the town where the road meets the big northern bend in the Thames." By Lord Brooke, Pym meant Robert Greville, one of his partners in the Providence Company.

  "I can't fault the decision to send those two together," Daniel said. "They hate bloody Charlie and want him brought down no matter what it takes. I wish Assex shared their conviction. I fear that Assex's meekness towards Charlie has just cost this kingdom three thousand of its young men, and for nothing. Nay, for less than nothing, for now the king's demon is loose in the Thames Valley and his army is but a day away on the main highway."

  "Assex ... how droll. Yes, I have been sent many complaints about Essex's timidity, but then I have also been sent the same complaint about Oliver here, and about John Hampden."

  Daniel spoke over Oliver's request for the name of his detractor to ask, "Who could possible say that Hampden was timid?"

  "Essex himself," Pym replied, while ignoring Oliver's question. "He says that rather than fight Prince Rupert fairly with musket and pike, he besmirched our reputation firing grape into Rupert's cavalry."

  "It was I who ordered the cannons at Kineton loaded with grape and aimed at the cavalry," Daniel corrected. "My god man, they were butchering the wounded."

  "More of this Schrecken tactic?" Pym confirmed. "You will forgive me for forbidding mention of this terror tactic in London's broadsheets. Not by the kings supporters and not by us. I, we, would appreciate it if it stayed that way. The true effect of an act of terror depends upon it being spoken about, whether that effect be a quick surrender or a vow to fight to the death."

  Pym was interrupted by someone opening the terrace door to the dining hall, and letting some of the raucous noise escape. The door closed again and the noise was replaced by a sob. Two of the guards near the door called out for Daniel. As he approached he saw Britta standing there with the guards while she tried to straighten her bodice so it would again hide both of her nipples. The guards were staring at the one breast freed from its holster until Daniel hissed at them to about face. In two more strides he was beside her and he whispered. "Continue to straighten yourself. It's just me, Danny." This because her eyes would still be night blind from the lights of the hall. "What has happened?"

  Britta sniffed up a tear and gave up on her gown. It was ruined. "The men inside are all hands. They are worse than Cambridge students at The George after passing an exam. Greasy hands. Look what they've done to my best gown. Venison fat will never come out of the silk, and look at where the stains are ... all over my bum. And they've ripped the seam of my new French bodice. I can't go back inside looking like this."

  "Who did it?"

  "As for the hand prints on my bum, who knows. The bodice, that was done by that foul mouthed beast Essex."

  Pym had recognized the young beauty from other dinners at this fine house and had stumbled over in hopes of gaining one of her warming smiles. "I've never known Essex to use bad language to a lady," he said softly.

  "Not his words, his breath," she sobbed. "And him trying to put his tongue in my mouth. Revolting. When I pulled away he did this," she let one side of the bodice fall down again. Pym couldn't quite convince himself not to stare. It was the most perfect of breasts, high and firm and bowl shaped rather than jug shaped.

  That lovely breast was nothing that Daniel hadn't seen many times before, so instead of staring he ordered two of the guards to spread the word to 'calmly' lock up the daughters. One of them sprinted towards the front door, and the other sprinted for the kitchen. "Calmly," he called after them. "So it is not noticed until all of the women are safe behind locked doors."

  While Daniel was barking orders, Britta pushed in closer to the old man, Pym in hopes of staying warm. Her other choice was Oliver, but she had always found him a bit of a cold fish. Pym was the same. He had no warmth, no energy, no luster to his being. "Mr. Pym, are you still unwell? Why haven't your physicians made you healthy yet?"

  "I sometimes think it is because I pay them too well while I am sickly," Pym attempted levity. It was embarrassing for him to have the beauteous young woman see him at his worst. "Even mere acquaintances are offering me home remedies. Warwick's huntress for instance. You must know her."

  "You mean Teesa. She is my sister. Are you telling me that Teesa has held your hand and run her warming hand over you?"

  "Why yes. It seemed to take the gnawing away, but that is likely because the lass is most distracting. So are you my dear."

  "She laid hands on you and then she sent you some medicine?"

  "Why yes, a tincture of wormwood, or at least that is what Daniel told me."

  "You old silly. If my sister knows your pain and has sent you a tincture, then hurry home and take some."

  "Do you think it will work?" Pym asked.

  "Well if it doesn't you can always ask her for your coin back," she teased him. "It seems to me that you should pay physicians for keeping you well, and stop paying them when you fall ill. Isn't that what you politicians call a free market?"

  "Britta, love," Daniel interrupted as he walked nearer. "Could you be a dear and herd all of the women still in the dining hall out towards the back staircase. The guard will meet them there to escort them to rooms with stout doors."

  "Servers and hostesses?" she confirmed, and when he nodded she gave a thought to the unusual request, but on second thought it all made good sense. "Can I tell the guard to shoot Essex if he tries to stop me from leaving?"

  "Nooo. " called Oliver and stepped forward waving his hands. The man never could take a jest.

  Not wanting to double the embarrassment by telling the member from Cambridge that he had missed yet another jest, Daniel said, "Not this time love. Maybe next time." Pym got it however, and his laughter turned into a cough, and then a worse cough.

  "Ollie, I think our Mr. Pym has said all he will tonight. There is a trap outside waiting to take him home. Could you go with him see to his comfort?"

  "But Pym lives across town, while I live on the other side of Britta's gate. I will have to go all the way there and then all the way back."

  "Well then go inside and fetch Hampden," Daniel told him. "He won't say no." Sometimes Oliver could be the most uncharitable of men. Didn't everyone measure the worth of charity by how much they really didn't want to give it. Meanwhile Britta had her breasts cupped again, and was pulling at some silk to fluff it up to cove the tear. She did a slight curtsey to John Pym and then twirled on a heel and went back inside.

  Moments later, Britta was replace by Countess Susannah on the terrace. "Captain, captain," she called softly out into the dark. "Are you still there?"

  "To your right love," Daniel replied. "Wait a moment until your eye
s adjust."

  "Never mind my eyes, come closer and speak with me before I freeze to death. This gown of mine is made of gathered gossamer, so the whole thing could be stuffed into a pint cup. What is all this about you locking up my women."

  "Only the daughters, love. Any woman who has never been a daughter can stay in the hall with them randy drunks."

  "Hmm, I see. Did Cook agree to this."

  "It was her idea, mam. She says she has enough battle axes like her to put all the food away, so there is no need to risk the honor of the youngn's."

  "Well that is fine for the rest, but I refuse to be locked up in my own house." It was a telling statement for the countess for she was older than the Cook, but didn't look it.

  "Then find a warm cloak, love, and meet me in at the front door. We'll do the rounds together." He knew she would agree. She had the sweets for him. The countess went back inside with Oliver, while Daniel and one of the guards formed a carry chair by holding each other's hands, and with one of his arms over each of their necks, they carried Pym around the house to the front gate to find his trap driver. By the time they took a few rests along the way, they got to the front gate to find not only the countess waiting for them, but also Oliver and Hampden, and the captain of the Holborn night watch."

  "Daniel, good news," Susannah called to him. "The captain of the watch says that our guests can start out to their homes after the curfew and the watch will keep an eye out to their safety. Isn't that wonderful of him?"

  Daniel smiled, and stretched out to shake the captain's hand. "Good plan," he told him. "I wish I had thought of it. Be warned that by the time the carriages leave this house they will be filled with drunks. Probably fall down drunk, for many of them are just back from the wars and they will be trying to forget what horrors they have seen on the battlefield."

  Hampden was having two of the gate keepers load Pym into his carriage. Daniel and Susannah escorted the captain out the gate and then went to stand beside Oliver, who by that time was having a heated discussion with Hampden.

  "That sounds like a self serving excuse to me," Oliver was saying.

  "Excuse for what?" Daniel asked as he pulled the countess into his arms to help keep her warm, or rather, to share the wool cloak she was now wearing. She did not resist the embrace despite all the onlookers.

  "Oliver wrote me a very critical letter about how our cavalry was not up to the task of taking on Prince Rupert and his well mounted men of quality. That our horse ran away like cowards rather than fight. I was just telling him of Colonel Balfour's response to the criticism. How he ordered our irregular cavalry to turn and run, rather than fight, in order to lead the prince's flying army away from our infantry lines, and that once the prince was off the field, then he led a charge of our regular cavalry which broke the king's infantry line and spiked his cannons."

  "As I say, a bare faced lie to cover up rank cowardice," Oliver almost spat the words.

  "Be careful who you slander, Ollie," Daniel told him. "Balfour is the closest thing that Essex has to Field Marshal Alex Leslie of the Scottish army. Were it my decision to make, he would be running the army instead of Essex."

  "Lies to cover up," Oliver repeated.

  "Not a bit of it," Daniel replied. "I was there when he told the irregulars to lead the flying army away from our lines, and keep them away, and I was there when he broke through the king's line and spiked the cannons. And as for your well mounted men of quality, all they did in that battle was to slaughter unarmed men and the wounded."

  "So you disagree with Oliver?" Hampden asked. "You would not recruit a cavalry force of gentlemen to match the prince's?"

  "If you want to beat Charlie then you must first beat the prince. What I learned about gentlemen cavalryers fighting in the Netherlands was to never play by their rules. Instead force them to play by yours. With cavalryers that means taking their horses away from them and thereby rob them of their ability to attack and retreat faster than the infantry."

  "You mean we need more field guns and muskets," Hampden confirmed.

  "Nay, for those are only of use in battle lines or in defense. They cannot run a flying squad down and force them off their horses. You have the men and the horses you need, but what they need is more and better pistols. If it were my decision, I would have the gunsmiths build double barreled pistols and give each of our skirmishers three or four of them, so they can do some real damage to Rupert's vultures before they must retreat to reload."

  "Such pistols would be too expensive," Oliver argued.

  "Cheaper than equipping regular cavalry," Daniel told them, "and quicker than recruiting and training snotty nosed gents who will change sides the moment the king offers them a knighthood." He had been resisting Susannah's efforts to tug him away from the arguement, but then he thought about the ear full that Britta would give him once she heard what he had just said, so he allowed himself to be led away.

  * * * * *

  Hours and hours later, Daniel walked a sleepy Britta and an even sleepier Oliver back across the field to Britta's back gate. "Oh, I almost forgot," Daniel said as he reached into his pocket for Oliver’s small wheel lock pistol. "I was supposed to return this to you. I would have returned it earlier but it slipped my mind."

  Oliver took the pistol but made no comment. Both of them knew that any pistol was better held in Daniel's hand than in his.

  "By the way," Daniel told him, "Stop using a flint in the dog. With a wheel-lock you should be using fool's gold. It sparks fuller and easier."

  "But it wears down so quickly," Oliver said trying to justify his use of flint.

  "If you ever have call to use that baby pistol, it will be a life and death situation. You will not have time to quibble about the cost of a morsel of fool's gold."

  "Point taken," Oliver replied. He was just glad to own a pistol so small, small enough to fit in a coat pocket. He was also glad that Britta hadn't demanded to be carried back over the long grass for he barely had the energy to walk.

  Britta's gown was ruined anyway so the wet grass was no longer an issue for her. She trudged along with the two men, and cursed her silly shoes, but under her breath. Ollie was such a prude. She didn't remember these grounds being so wide. She stopped to straighten her gown and happened to look up. "Oh, oh, oh," she called to the two men who were now ahead of her, and then she danced a spin and a leap to catch up to them.

  "Look at the sky, Danny, look at the sky," She called out. Despite her exhaustion she began to merrily dance along sideways so she could look up to the north. "It's the Norse lights." The whole of the northern horizon was oozing and swaying with a misty ghostly green light. "That means another week of clear cold weather."

  Oliver stopped his trudging and looked up to see. He had been acquainted with the Wellenhay clan for five or six years, and it always humbled him at how they took such joy in the God made things all around them. He smiled at the wondrous lights despite himself. The lights and the dancer. The lights and the dancer made him forget how dog tired he was, and in no time they were at her private gate. A lad came down from the house and opened it for them. He was perhaps fourteen and he had a face that Oliver had seen before, but not on this lad."

  "Robert Rich the Third may I introduce Oliver Cromwell, my neighbour," she said quite formally. "He has just returned from the wars. And you mind your manners for he is Bridget's father."

  "We've met before," the lad said as he ignored the old man and took his lady love's hand and led her towards the house.

  "Not yet," she told him. "Look up there." She pointed up to the northern sky above the wall and in reaching up her costly formal cloak fell open.

  The lad did not look up, but down her cleavage and then at her ripped bodice. "Who did that?" he asked, plucking at the soft fabric against her breast. "Tell me who dared to lay a hand on your breast and I will slay him for you."

  "Can't that wait until tomorrow," Britta asked him sweetly. "For now what my breast needs is to be kissed bett
er." She gathered him into her arms and wrapped her cloak around them both and forced him to look up.

  Oliver moaned at the thought of kissing her breast, but said nothing. Oh to be young again. Oh to be sexually teased by someone so young again.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014

  Chapter 12 - To Kingston for cannons in November 1642

  Edward Montagu, the new Earl of Manchester, had owed Daniel his very freedom ever since the rescue of Reform Party members from the House of Commons on that day when the king decided to storm Westminster and arrest his most vocal declaimers. That was not the reason, however, that Daniel now sat with Montagu in his fine carriage as it traversed the filthy London streets towards the Providence Company warehouses on the embankment of the Thames at Queenhithe.

  Filthy streets, yes, because the long, dry, cold autumn had not yet been broken by torrential rain that would clean the ancient place. Londoners were cursing the dry frosty mornings of the past month, rather than the more usual torrential rains. Folk were leaping out of the way of the carriage, not because it was moving quickly or recklessly, for it was moving at a sedate pace so that the horses could make careful steps on the slippery cobbles. They were leaping out of the splash zone, for the splash of hooves and wheels was not spraying up muddy water, but a most foul slime.

  Daniel looked over at the handsome couple facing him. Montagu was a bit old than him, and darkly handsome. Britta was, as usual, devastatingly beautiful. She was the reason that Montagu had agreed to accompany Daniel to the warehouse to make sure that there was no misunderstanding that a dozen four pound field guns were to be released to him for shipment to Lynn on The Wash for use by the Norfolk Trainbands on their patrol boats.

  Montagu was a colonel in Essex's army and parliament's choice of Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire, and so it was he who had been pushing the hardest for the alliance of all the trainbands of the eastern shires into one force under one command. More important than any of this, he was married into the Rich family of the Earl of Warwick, and was a shareholder in the Providence Company. All of the key Reform Party members were shareholders in Robert Rich's Providence Company. The cannons in question were in a Providence Company warehouse, which was why Daniel was glad of this lord's company.