The soldier shrugged. ‘It’s the wind, Captain Jones.’
Jones looked up past the masts and rigging and the tightly lashed bundles of gathered sail. ‘Ever heard a wind like this, Mister Stryker?’
The ship lurched suddenly to larboard, dipped into a valley between two gigantic waves, and bucked on the next swell so that the only thing the men could see was the pitch fastness of the sky. The vessel seemed to cry out like an injured whale, every timber groaning in dreadful unison.
Stryker gathered his cloak tighter. ‘The truth, Captain Jones. We will survive this?’
Jones grinned wolfishly. ‘Of course!’ He patted the slick rail. ‘My beauty’s built to tame the oceans!’
Stryker was not so sure. He had always hated the treacherous unpredictability of the sea. A patch of foam frothed and seethed wildly in the inky distance, betraying a hidden point where the water’s angry surface was torn like black cloth. ‘More rocks?’
‘Keep your nerve, Captain!’ Jones brayed in dark amusement. ‘It signals our success!’
‘Land?’
‘Land indeed, sir! St Martin’s. Did I not tell you to trust me?’
A sheet of stinging spray jetted up off the bow to dowse the two men, and they hunched low. Stryker slipped, only just managing to right himself. He swore into the wind. ‘I mean to make for St Mary’s.’
‘And I shall see that you reach it, Mister Stryker,’ Jones said confidently. ‘The Scillies are comprised of many islands.’ But when the ship groaned again, the mirth melted from his eyes. He cocked his head to the side like a hound sniffing the breeze.
Stryker felt his pulse quicken. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, I am sure,’ Jones said, but his voice was barely audible.
‘I do not believe you.’
Jones swallowed thickly. ‘The timbers should not sound like that. Something is amiss, that is all.’
The Kestrel rose quickly, as if propelled by the fist of God Himself, and they were staring at the sky again. When it dropped the groan was deeper, like the grinding of cogs that had fallen out of step. The deck vibrated.
‘Jesu,’ Jones murmured. ‘Oh, Jesu.’
‘Captain?’
Jones’s eyes were suddenly wide, bright discs above the hedge of his beard. ‘Oh, Jesus, help us!’
The impact began as a series of small cracks, like the felling of a dozen trees, one after another, rising in volume and force, each shaking the timbers at their feet. Stryker grasped the rail and looked to Jones for an answer, but the skipper was already backing away, staggering and sliding rearwards across the slippery planks. His hands raked down his cheeks, tugging at his whiskers, as though he suddenly witnessed a horror too awful for his mind to consider. ‘We have been blown off course, sir!’ he blurted as Stryker began to pursue. ‘Rocks! My God, we are lost!’
When it came, the collision knocked both men off their feet. If the first cracks had been like falling trees, this was as though a building of stone had come crashing down in a single instant. Stryker sprawled on the watery deck, scrabbling for purchase as the vessel reeled. It screamed as the unseen assailant tore into its belly, the timbers splintering far below them, eviscerating the keel, exposing the Kestrel to a most terrible fate. As Stryker clambered back to his feet he could no longer see the ship’s captain, but through one of the hatches further along the deck came the shapes of men. They were bellowing, snarling oaths and warnings, beseeching God for mercy, because they all knew what was happening to their ship.
More snapping and cracking and grinding. The timbers at Stryker’s feet juddered as though some great fissure had torn open on the seabed immediately below the hull, and the black night came alive with a roar that was like nothing he had heard before. In his time he had stood in tight ranks of men and been pounded by batteries of vast iron cannon. He had stared up at the whirring arc of a mortar shell and witnessed the explosive power of a well-placed petard. Yet none of those horrors compared. The Kestrel brayed like a wounded beast as her very heart was broken, planks and ropes and spars all splintering together, her great frame pulverized by this invisible foe. She heeled violently to port. This time there was no swing in the opposite direction, no innate balancing act. She could not right herself but slewed about the rocky crag, as though pinned to the jagged shadow, glued fast by the foam that swirled in white patterns where stone shredded sea. And the first men screamed. They screamed because of the noise and because of the salty water that must surely be pouring unchecked into the Kestrel’s torn bowels. And they screamed for sheer terror, because most of them could not swim.
Stryker fell again, dashed about the deck like a rag doll, lost to the elements that had turned so maliciously against them. He needed to find his men. His team of musketeers who had accompanied him on this mission, and who now needed his leadership more than ever before. There was a hatch further back. He had used it countless times since they sailed out of the Bristol Channel, but now, in this clawing panic, he was blinded and vulnerable, his mind wiped blank by the sheer need to survive. The Kestrel shook again and slid further to port so that she seemed to hang at a steep angle. He found his footing once more, was thrown immediately back into the rail and only saved himself by clinging to a tangled mass of rigging that hung loose like ancient vines. The vessel was emitting a low, visceral mew, like a heifer catching the scent of a shambles, and he knew that he was pinned, doomed to hang in these sodden chains as the ship was swallowed by the cold depths. He gritted his teeth, stared up at the sky, and screamed impotent fury at the world.
And the Kestrel began to slip into the darkness.
Oxford, 30 September 1643
Captain Lancelot Forrester hated the noise of the ropes. The creak, gentle yet incessant, always made his teeth itch. It was a sound that frightened him the first time he had witnessed a hanging, and, he reflected morosely, might very well be the last thing he heard, should life take an unfortunate twist. God knew he had flirted with such a fate enough times. He felt his shoulders tremble a touch at the thought.
The bodies were still now, mercifully. They had been positioned on a cart, nooses looped about their necks and fastened to the thickest bough of an ancient oak, and then, quite calmly given the circumstances, each had fallen as the rickety vehicle had been pulled away by its pair of disinterested palfreys. There had been no drop to speak of, nothing that could snap a man’s neck, and none of the condemned had died quickly, but at least the life had finally been throttled out of them. The kicking had stopped. The tongues lolled tantalizingly for the circling crows and kites.
Forrester sniffed the air. It smelled acrid, stomach-churning. Shit and piss. He noticed the steady drip of liquid from two of the five pairs of bare feet and turned away. ‘Mister Jays?’
An earnest-looking youth in red coat and brown breeches appeared at his side. ‘Sir?’
‘Leave ’em for another half hour. Make sure they’re gone, then cut them down.’ Forrester glanced up at the mass of black dots that swirled below the grey clouds. ‘And chase those buggers off, should they decide to break their fast on our friends here.’
Jays twisted the tip of his wispy moustache as he eyed the carrion birds from beneath the rim of an ostentatiously wide hat. ‘That I will, sir. Pit’ll be dug nice and deep. We’ll get them in directly.’
‘Good.’ Forrester took off his hat, ruffling the sweaty strands of thinning, sandy-coloured hair with pudgy fingers, and took one last look at the swaying corpses. ‘They may be mutineers, Lieutenant, but they’re still men. Let us bury them with a modicum of dignity.’ He shrugged. ‘Or at least without their eyeballs pecked out.’
‘I’ll see to the digging party,’ Jays replied, touching a gloved finger to the brim of his hat as he turned smartly about.
‘And, Reginald,’ Forrester called as his second-in-command scampered away.
‘Sir?’
‘I hope what remains of your birthday will be more agreeable.’
Lieutenant Jays grin
ned. He had been a Parliamentarian at the outset of the war, and, with a name to be made for himself, led a small detachment of men into an ill-fated assault on a tavern on Dartmoor’s eastern fringe. Unfortunately for him, Lancelot Forrester and his company of veterans were resting inside, and the fight had been swift and brutal. But the Royalist officer had seen a spark of potential in Jays’ reckless ambition, and had offered the youngster a position within his cohort, should Jays be willing to turn his coat. ‘Fifteen today, sir.’
‘I know, Reginald,’ Forrester said with an exaggerated roll of the eyes, though he was secretly proud of how far the lad had come since that first bloody meeting. He pointed at the oak that had become a makeshift gallows. ‘And your gift is five rotting cadavers. Do not thank me.’
He watched the lieutenant scuttle off towards a stand of trees behind which a burial pit had been scraped from the clay soil. The men would be left there, unmarked and forgotten. More casualties of an increasingly bitter conflict. On his way, Jays paused to speak to a musketeer who nodded briskly and moved to stand beside the hanging tree, evidently ordered to keep watch.
Forrester winced at a sudden pain in his right shoulder, and he rolled it gently, instinctively touching the aching flesh below his coat with his opposite hand. A musket-ball had clipped him at Newbury Fight. It had been fired at long range, but the blow had nevertheless knocked him backwards into the mud. And now, though ten days had passed, the skin was still bruised. Still, he chided himself, at least his skin was intact. Newbury had been the worst scrap yet. The Royalist high command might have felt the sting of humiliation after their abortive attempt to take rebel-held Gloucester, but the opportunity to redeem themselves had presented itself almost immediately. The Earl of Essex, commander of the Parliamentarian army that had marched so effectively through the obstructive cordon of Royalist cavalry to relieve the beleaguered city, had, by that very act, left London open to attack. Thus, the theatre of war had moved as soon as the siege had been lifted, the two huge forces promptly turning about in a race for the capital. Essex had a head start but was slowed by his artillery train and the sheer incompetence of some of his hastily raised regiments, and the Royalists finally cut him off at Newbury. The opportunity to destroy the rebellion had been handed to them on a platter. Even Forrester had felt the rush of blood in his veins as they hunted the Roundhead army down, the promise of rescuing glory from the ignominy of their failure at Gloucester sharpening their wits and bolstering their resolve. They knew that if they could defeat Essex decisively, London would be left defenceless. The war would be over in its first full year.
Forrester rolled his smarting shoulder again, picked a scrap of salted pork from between two molars, and stared about the sprawling encampment. His own regiment, Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Foot, were five hundred yards to the south, and he could see some of them gathered in their usual groups, drinking tobacco smoke, gambling, tending to wounds or repairing weapons. Oxford was the capital of Royalist England. The ancient city had been commandeered by the king and his court; shops, homes and university buildings turned to barracks and storehouses, arms depots and powder magazines. But for all its size, it could not contain the vast army it now entertained, and most of the king’s soldiers were bivouacked in the surrounding fields, a rambling warren of men and horses scattered below the city’s great earthworks. He wondered when they would be on the move again. It was not good to keep an army static for too long, for such inertia bred lethargy and camp fever, a concoction that could only lead to mutiny. He looked again at the five wretches he had been ordered to hang this morning. He thanked God they were not members of his unit; he had not even known their names. But how much more hardship would it take for unrest to spread to his own ranks? It did not bear consideration, especially after the blood they had all shed just the previous week.
He gritted his teeth at the memory of stinking powder smoke, the acrid plumes of jaundiced white that had drifted sideways like a wind-blown fog to obscure the killing ground at Newbury. The battle had not unfolded as they were hoping. The rebels had held their ground after a day of carnage that saw three and a half thousand bodies left to bloat in the autumn sun. It had ended in stalemate, and, though the Royalists still blocked the road to London, King Charles had ordered a withdrawal. God alone knew why, for, as far as Forrester was concerned, they owed it to their fallen comrades to put down roots on the road, continue the battle the following day, and make that vital play on London. Instead they simply left the way clear for Essex, who wasted no time in high-tailing it home. It had been a bloody day of destruction and missed chances, and now here they were, skulking back in Oxford, no better off than they had been at the start of so costly a summer. And all the while the Parliamentarian news-sheets would be making merry with reports from Gloucester and Newbury. News that could only give hope to the hitherto wavering rebel resolve.
‘How fare’s the wound, Captain?’
Forrester turned to see a small man pick his way through the flotsam of the sprawling camp. He was an incongruous sight in this martial setting, his small, portly frame draped in a hooded cloak that gave him the appearance of a monk.
‘I cannot gripe, Mister Killigrew,’ Forrester muttered. ‘Many did not see dusk.’
Ezra Killigrew pushed back his hood to reveal black hair scraped close along his scalp and gleaming with oil that stank of lavender. His fleshy face was sallow and his blood-shot eyes hung with thick lids. He offered a smile of small, white teeth and glanced up at the makeshift gallows. ‘What was their offence? Spying?’
‘Revolting.’
Killigrew wrinkled his sharp nose, putting Forrester in mind of a rodent. ‘Mutineers are the scourge of any army. All five involved, were they?’
‘Five were condemned,’ Forrester said tersely.
The corners of Killigrew’s little eyes creased. ‘Oft times it pays to hang an extra two or three, Captain, as well you know. To press the point home, so to speak.’
Forrester sighed. ‘If you seek Captain Stryker, he is not here.’
‘I am very well aware of that, thank you.’ Killigrew smirked and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘The Isles of Scilly. He was dispatched to recover a hoard of treasure.’ He winked conspiratorially. ‘Do not be so abashed, Captain, I have these rather delicate fingers in many a pie.’ With a flourish, he shook his hand and thrust it into the folds of his cloak, pulling out a small bag. He opened it with a lick of his puffy lips and plucked free a glistening sugar plum. ‘Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam.’
‘The sinews of war are unlimited money.’
‘Dear Cicero,’ Killigrew said, though he was clearly a little surprised. He inspected the sugar plum as though it were a precious gem. ‘Just as well Stryker is away, truth told.’
Forrester did not like Ezra Killigrew; the man was a weasel. A creature of politics and secrets. A man who seemed so insignificant, yet one who might have another’s neck stretched on a whim. He was a dangerous person to know, and to ignore, so Forrester chose to humour him. ‘Enlighten me, Mister Killigrew, please.’
Killigrew crammed the sugar plum into the side of his mouth and shot him a crimson-gummed grin. ‘Between you, me and those rather off-putting fellows,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the hanged men, ‘Artemas Crow is making something of a nuisance of himself.’
‘Colonel Crow received only just reward for his malice,’ Forrester snapped angrily, immediately realizing his mistake. He looked quickly away, though the rising heat in his cheeks was like bubbling lava.
Killigrew stared up into Forrester’s face. ‘Oh?’ His tiny black eyes fixed unblinkingly on the captain’s. ‘I thought you refuted his claim, Captain. You bore witness that he fell from his horse.’
Forrester felt his throat thicken. ‘Aye, that is what happened.’
‘Strange, is it not?’ Killigrew said, delving for another sugar plum. ‘Crow is a dragooner. He spends most of his life in the saddle, yet topples quite inexplicably, landing on his face!’ He chuckl
ed at the image. ‘The daft old curmudgeon didn’t even think to put out his hands to break the fall.’
‘Strange indeed,’ Forrester echoed. His pulse seemed to be louder than his voice. ‘Perhaps he was in his cups.’
‘Of course,’ Killigrew went on brightly, ‘That must be it. Though, that is not what dear Artemas testifies. He claims his nose came to grief when it collided rather heavily with your particular friend’s knuckles.’
‘That is entirely untrue,’ Forrester lied. Artemas Crow blamed Stryker for the death of his sons, and the grudge had festered like an open wound. Outside Gloucester’s crumbling but defiant walls, the dragoon had drawn his pistol on the infantryman, and had received a broken nose and abject humiliation for his trouble. Only Forrester and Lisette Gaillard, Stryker’s lover, had witnessed the altercation, much to Crow’s rage.
‘Still, the word of a colonel carries much weight,’ Killigrew said. ‘Stryker is fortunate he finds favour with the Crown.’
‘As he should,’ Forrester replied. The ghost of a memory haunted him as he spoke the words. Llanthony Priory, outside Gloucester, had been the place where an assassin’s crossbow bolt had almost ended the king’s life. It had drawn blood that day, he remembered with a keen pang of sadness, but the life it had taken was that of Cecily Cade, whose body had stopped the poisoned quarrel, and in whose memory the mission to the Isles of Scilly was undertaken. But the sovereign had survived because Captain Stryker had recognized the killer, tackled him, and thrown off his aim.
Killigrew offered a shallow shrug. ‘Nevertheless, he is safer away from court. Indeed, I am surprised you have not accompanied our sullen Cyclops on his latest sojourn.’
‘I was not permitted,’ Forrester replied, struggling to keep his temper in check.
‘A shame,’ Killigrew chirped smugly. ‘Still, the battle was a thing of horror by anyone’s standards. Colonel Mowbray was disinclined to lose you and Stryker both.’ He dragged his gaze up to the hanged men. ‘Not when spirits are at such low ebb.’
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 2