‘Where are we, sir?’ Skellen asked.
‘I know not.’ Suddenly craving his pipe, he put a hand to his shoulder, forgetting that he no longer had his snapsack. Indeed, he no longer had much at all. Unlike most, he still had his coat, saturated though it was, and his boots had been tight enough at his thighs and calves to repel the pull of the current, but his pistol was gone, as were his brace of dirks, his powder horn, water flask and snapsack. He planted his hand on the ornate hilt of his sword. It was a beautiful weapon, a gift from the queen herself, and he was glad that it fitted its scabbard so snugly and the baldric in which it hung had clung to him well. Most of his men had nothing but shirts and breeches to their names. Christ, he thought, but what had he brought them to? It was his arrogance that compelled them to climb so willingly aboard the ill-fated Kestrel. His promise to Cecily Cade – as she lay dying with an assassin’s crossbow bolt lodged in her flesh – that he would make the journey to retrieve her family fortune for the Crown. Why had he made so rash a pledge? Was it to assuage the guilt he felt for the bolt that had taken its fatal course after he had knocked the bow? Or had he made his promise because Lisette Gaillard, the woman he loved, had sworn hers? He stared up at Skellen. Whatever the reason, the company had followed him without question, even after marching through the hail of lead that was Newbury Fight, and now they had been destroyed for their misplaced trust. ‘Hubris.’
Skellen screwed up his leathery face. ‘Sir?’
‘I have brought us to this.’
‘You give the orders, sir, and we see ’em through.’ The tall sergeant shrugged. ‘Not a man ’ere, nor on that ship, nor back ’ome what’d have it different.’
‘We came through Newbury to wash up here.’
‘We came through Newbury, sir, aye. And Gloucester before that. And Roundway, Lansdown and Stratton. Every day is a day I hadn’t expected to see, sir.’
They fell silent as the miniature figure of Simeon Barkworth scurried along the granite barrier to reach them. ‘Fuck me, sir, if those salty bastards ain’t the worst gravediggers I ever saw!’ His voice was a rasp, as though a ligature throttled the sound as he spoke. ‘Don’t know one end of a shovel from t’other.’
Skellen wrinkled his long nose. ‘They ain’t got shovels, Tom Thumb.’
Barkworth’s yellow eyes sparkled as he glared up at the sergeant. ‘Well spotted, you lanky goat’s prick.’
The Scot was a reformado, a man who had enlisted with Stryker after the Battle of Hopton Heath, but who held no official rank. As such, he was, technically, not subordinate to Skellen, but that did not mean the sergeant would tolerate the insult. The tall man stepped forth, eliciting a mad cackle of a challenge from Barkworth, before abruptly stopping in his tracks. He stared down at the bar that had swung heavily across his path.
‘Not now,’ Stryker said, keeping his forearm solid against Skellen’s sternum. ‘Or I’ll drown you both myself, understood?’
Skellen swallowed and nodded.
‘Aye, sir,’ Barkworth croaked, rubbing the livid band of scar tissue that swathed his neck, the mark of a failed hanging. He looked back along the line of the dune. ‘Was a figure o’ speech, sir. The shovels, I mean. The sailors are next to useless. Can rig a bastard-big boat, I’m quite sure, but they can’nae dig for shite.’
Stryker lowered his arm and followed the Scot’s bright gaze. ‘With their hands, Simeon?’
Barkworth shrugged. ‘We’ve no tools, sir.’
‘Send some of our men to assist.’
‘Sir.’
The pair watched as Barkworth scrabbled his way down the treacherous escarpment to corral a squad of Stryker’s men. At length, Skellen cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Thinking ’pon Miss Lisette, sir? Beggin’ your pardon.’
In another place and time, Stryker would have scolded the sergeant for his impertinence. But he nodded as he watched the waves lap the shore. ‘Aye.’ He could not hide his worry. She had gone ahead of the main force, typically unwilling to wait for Stryker to be released from duty. Lisette was supposed to locate the house where Cecily Cade claimed her father’s fortune had been stored, and await Stryker’s arrival. Now, and not for the first time, he had let her down.
‘She’ll have found the gold already, like as not,’ Skellen said hopefully. ‘Frightened the living ballocks out of some poor local, got him to help her take it back. If she’s in Oxford right now, sir, suppin’ claret and cursin’ all English heretics – ’cept the King, of course – I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.’
Stryker could not help but laugh. Lisette was an agent of the Crown, more specifically of Queen Henrietta Maria, and she was not a woman to be underestimated. The men, including William Skellen, found her bewitching, for her beauty was matched by her talent for death and deception. ‘You’re probably in the right of it, Sergeant,’ he said, though he was not so sure. He peered inland to hide his discomfort, and studied the terrain.
They were on an island, clearly, for he could see all the way to the far side, where another craggy coastline nestled against the dark of the sea. The water pressed in to the right and left as well, but further away, and he realized that the island must be long and narrow. As far as he could see, the beaches were yellow with sand, separated from the interior by crumbling cliffs that appeared almost white below the grey skies. Beyond the rocks, the interior was green but sparse, rising at either end to rocky hillocks. He could not see any buildings, nor even the tell-tale smoke trail that might betray a hidden hearth. He recalled a discussion with Captain Jones. ‘The Scillies are made up of many islands. Most uninhabited. And we were near the easternmost when . . . when it happened.’
‘So we could have landed on our feet.’
‘I would hardly say that,’ Stryker countered. ‘But the point is made, Will, aye. Seems it may not all be disaster.’
Skellen picked his nose, inspected the end of his finger, and cracked his neck loudly. ‘So how in the name of Joseph’s pretty coat do we find out where we are?’
At first, Stryker thought the sharp click was another one of Skellen’s stiff joints, but when he caught the sergeant’s eye in alarm, the pair of them spun round to see the huge fowling-piece pointed directly at them.
‘Allow me to help, gentlemen,’ the man wielding the gun said. He did not look like a soldier, but his demeanour seemed calm enough for Stryker to hesitate in his natural urge to attack.
Stryker raised his hands. ‘Ho, sir, do not be hasty with that thing.’
The newcomer smiled behind the black muzzle, a gesture that did not reach his wide, brown eyes. ‘As I said, I am here to help. You’re on the isle of Great Ganilly.’ He drew the firearm to full cock. ‘And you’re in a spot ’o bother, rebel.’
‘The island’s the better part of a thousand yards from north to south. And the terrain’s a bitch at either end. Fortunately, there, in the very middle, she’s not a hundred yards across, and barely above sea level.’
Their captor’s name was Jethro Beck: a man of the Scillies, born on St Martin’s, and a fisherman by trade. Now, as the boat slid out between the jagged rocks, he indicated the place to which he had forced them to march. The spot where the vessels had been waiting on Great Ganilly’s western shore. ‘Can get from one side o’ the island to the other in a matter of a few minutes.’
‘You are sentries?’ Stryker said as he gripped the side of the bobbing vessel. They were in one of Beck’s trio of single-sailed skiffs, along with Skellen, Barkworth and the three sailors. Beck had appeared on the ridge with six men, all armed, and one of those sat in the stern. The rest, along with Stryker’s eleven wretched musketeers, were divided amongst the other boats, and together, forming a tiny fleet on the grey swell, they made their way south and west from Great Ganilly.
‘Aye.’
‘But you’re fishermen?’
‘Garrison now,’ Beck grunted in a voice worn harsh by salt air. ‘Since this war started, least wise. Men of fighting age called to serve.’
‘Our war?’
Jethro Beck nodded. He sat with his hand cupping the priming pan of his fowling-piece in order to keep the powder dry. That piece never wavered from its mark, its black mouth gaping at Stryker’s chest, swaying with the waves. ‘We’re peaceable folk, ’ere, cully. Loyal to our sovereign, devoted to our Lord. The blood shed on the mainland would be no concern of ours.’ He spat over the side. ‘Except you makes it our concern. You and your rebel knaves.’
Stryker gritted his teeth. ‘I have told you before, sir, we are no rebels.’
Beck shrugged. ‘Rebels, Roundheads, righteous bleedin’ men o’ justice. I could not give two bouncin’ tits for the name you gives it!’
Barkworth, at Stryker’s side on the foremost bench, seemed to twitch, and a constricted croak, like the whining of a rusty hinge, escaped from his throat. ‘Christ, man, are you an ignoramus?’ He shifted forwards a touch, amber eyes bright as they darted up at Stryker. ‘Would ye like me to knock some sense into that thick fucking skull, sir?’
Jethro Beck snorted his derision, jerked the fowling-piece. ‘Easy now, cully, or you’ll get to feed the fish.’
Stryker placed a hand on the Scotsman’s forearm. ‘Do as he says, Simeon.’ He stared Beck in the face as Barkworth slumped back. ‘We are not for the Parliament, sir. That is the truth. We are Royalists. For King Charles. Sent here by His Majesty in person.’
‘Papers?’
Stryker sighed. ‘As I have told you, we have no credentials. They were destroyed in the wreck.’ He splashed the surface of the water with his fingers. ‘My damned papers float out here somewhere.’
‘Shame for you then, cully,’ Beck said. ‘P’raps they’ll bob past, eh?’
Stryker balled his fists in frustration, thinking of his sword that now sat between Beck’s feet. ‘Why do you not believe us?’
‘Why should I believe you?’
The skiff dipped off the back of a wave and was hit by the crest of another as its bow began to lift. The men were jolted together like powder charges on a shaken bandoleer. Stryker gripped the sides and looked to Beck, hoping the man had been thrown off balance, but there he was, steady and alert. Stryker waited for the skiff to regain some semblance of calm on the choppy water. ‘You say the islands declared for the King, and that no blood has been spilt here. We come to Scilly in the name of that same king. Why would you choose not to believe us? I do not understand.’ A thought struck him, then. The face of a man with a wispy auburn beard and grey eyes, whose deeply lined cheeks had been spattered by Roundhead blood on a hill above a place called Stratton. A hill that had become a charnel house one summer afternoon. ‘Bassett!’
‘Eh?’ Beck grunted.
‘Sir Thomas Bassett. I fought with him. I know him, sir.’ He looked down at Barkworth. ‘Major-General of our Cornish army. Governor of the Isles of Scilly.’
‘Lieutenant-Governor,’ Beck corrected. ‘Sir Francis Godolphin is our lord here.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘But both men are long gone. Sailed to the mainland when war was declared.’ They rounded the pale granite cliffs of the southernmost island Beck had named as Little Arthur, and tacked more sharply to the south-west, where, perhaps a mile away, Stryker could see the craggy coast of yet another land-mass. Beck risked a swift glance over his shoulder. ‘St Mary’s. Our destination. The King’s men await us at the Hugh.’
‘The garrison?’ Stryker asked.
Beck shook his head. ‘From the mainland. Emissaries from Governor Godolphin himself.’ He brayed at his captives’ obvious bewilderment. ‘You see? You claim to be from the King, but his men are already here!’
Stryker could not keep the puzzlement from his face. ‘I do not—’
‘And they have warned us of your approach,’ Jethro Beck went on, his mirth slipping away on the whipping breeze. ‘A company of soldiers led by a one-eyed devil, claiming to be for the King, but secretly a gaggle o’ bastardly rebel gullions, intent on taking this fair place for Pym an’ his hounds.’
Stryker’s pulse raced. He stared at the headland of St Mary’s, wondering what fate awaited them. ‘Other men have told you this? They are on St Mary’s now?’
Beck nodded, eyes brimming with indignation at his prisoner’s perceived ruse. ‘Aye, cully.’
‘Is that where you take us? To these men?’
‘To the castle at St Mary’s. And aye, to these God-fearing, loyal men.’
Skellen, silent until now, craned forwards from the bench behind to whisper in Stryker’s ear. ‘He’s mad, sir. Put the wrong bloody mushrooms in his pottage.’
But Stryker was not so sure. ‘Who?’ he pressed the fisherman. ‘Who are they?’
Jethro Beck grinned, exposing little brown teeth and equally brown gums. ‘You’ll know soon enough, cully.’
CHAPTER 3
Romsey, Hampshire, 2 October 1643
Colonel Richard Norton eased his substantial bay gelding to a halt beneath the massive elm that marked the entrance to the abbey complex. From here a cinder path led pilgrims through the grounds to the vast edifice of grey stone blocks that climbed like a castle over the land hereabouts. The horse craned its head to inspect the foliage, the leaves fanning out in the warm gusts from its flaring nostrils, and he arched his back slowly, revelling in the gentle pain of stretching muscles. He looked down, pleased to see the grass was firm, evidence of a dry spell this far south. He took a moment to glance at his shadow, an oversized forbidding ghost of himself snaking across the green turf. He liked the image very much.
‘Sir?’
Norton looked round to see one of his gentleman troopers approach at the head of the column. ‘We’ll rest here, MacLachlan.’
The trooper reined in close by, unstrapped his three-barred helm to reveal a thin face with cleanly shaven, hollow cheeks and small, deep-set eyes. He propped the pot between his thighs and watched as cavalrymen trotted past in pairs, breastplates gleaming, hooves crunching heavily on the path. He waved at some of the men, indicating that they should spread out on the grass. ‘Will they feed us, do you think, sir?’
‘They will have to,’ Norton said with a shrug. He gazed about the open ground on to which his force filed from the road beyond. It was an area of tree-lined lawn, split by the cinder path and punctuated by a forest of wooden crosses and moss-clad stones. The grass had grown long so that it slanted to one side like a field flush with corn. He looked at MacLachlan. ‘Even a house of God is left to moulder in these dark days.’ He leaned forwards to pat his gelding’s solid neck. The beast whickered and dropped its head to the long green blades. ‘Still, at least there is plenty of fodder for the horses.’
MacLachlan raised a single thin brow. ‘House of God, sir?’
Norton plucked his own helmet free, scratching at the red-raw patch of skin that blighted the side of his neck. ‘Perhaps you’re right, MacLachlan. It is an old nest of vipers, I suppose.’
MacLachlan smirked. ‘Vipers wearing wimples, sir.’
Norton laughed. ‘Aye.’ He stretched again. ‘Well, let us proceed. It may be a bastion of the old order, but no longer. And besides,’ he added, looking round to see that, with the rest of his three hundred troopers, the rickety cart had made its way past the line of timber-framed houses and on to the cinder path that stretched out from the mouth of the abbey like a tar-stained tongue, ‘it is where our dear Francis wished to be laid to rest. We shall give him that.’
Norton twisted in his saddle to look up at the ancient complex. And what an impressive thing it was, he conceded. Romsey Abbey utterly dominated this little market town. Once home to the Benedictine order, it was a monster of a building, climbing above the skyline and reminding the world that England had once, long ago, bent the knee to Rome. Norton was a Presbyterian, and the idea of life under a Catholic boot-heel was utterly repugnant to him, but he could appreciate the looming buttresses and ornate craftsmanship that made this place so impressive, and so compelling.
He slid nimbly off his bay, leaving the lobster-
tailed helmet fastened to his saddle, and caught MacLachlan’s inquisitive eye. ‘See to the men, Major. And find somewhere,’ he rubbed a gloved hand through his copper hair as he searched for the word, ‘befitting Captain St Barbe.’
MacLachlan nodded and turned to the men, but Norton did not wait to hear what was said. St Barbe had been a good officer, a close friend, and a staunch man for the Parliament, and he found the business of burying him difficult to dwell upon. Instead he scanned the grounds for signs of life, eventually spotting a hunched fellow skulking in a tangled copse some way to his right.
‘Ho there!’ Norton called. ‘Come hither!’
The man had been clutching a mud-caked spade, which he promptly tossed away before trudging, glum-faced and nervous, towards the waiting horsemen. ‘Did not hear you, zir,’ he said when he had reached Norton.
‘I’ve no time for lies, fellow,’ Norton said with a dismissive wave. ‘You are a gravedigger, I presume?’
‘Aye, zir.’
‘Then where might I find the priest? There is one, is there not?’
The gravedigger nodded. ‘He’ll be in chancel, zir.’ He pointed a grimy finger towards a sweeping archway some twenty yards along the wall. ‘North door’d be your quickest way.’
Norton turned his back on the frightened man and caught the eye of another officer, who dismounted and went to his side.
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 4