Neither man kept hold of his sword, and it became a battle of hands, each clawing at the throat of the other, scrambling for purchase, searching for soft flesh, desperate to lock tight and squeeze. Forrester was on top. He was the heavier of the two, and he used his whole weight to pin the Roundhead, grinding him into the grass and crushing the wind from him. The man’s mouth flapped open, gasping for air, and Forrester was assailed by a blast of fetid breath. He slammed his forehead down, butting the greencoat squarely on the bridge of his nose. He was rewarded by a splintering crunch. The man slumped back and Forrester rolled away, scrambling quickly to his feet. When he gathered his senses, he saw the greencoat rise to his knees, but then his own sergeant was there, the hooked nose prominent in the gloom, stepping smartly across the wheezing greencoat and bringing his halberd up in a crashing blow that scraped across the exposed chest. The coat flapped open, slashed from naval to sternum, and the emerald wool was suddenly dark, the shadow growing with every beat of the rebel’s failing heart. He fell back, eyes staring sightlessly at the night sky.
Forrester nodded his thanks to the sergeant, stooped to retrieve his blade, and looked to the next opponent. But none came from the dark.
‘It is over, lads!’ he called. ‘They’ll not be back this night! You’ve done well!’ He paused for a desultory cheer to ripple through the ranks. ‘Now let us be rid of the bodies, and we’ll get some rest.’ He looked at the sergeant. ‘Set pickets. Make sure I am not proved a fool, eh?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Very good, sir.’
Lancelot Forrester watched the young men of Rawdon’s regiment. They chattered excitedly as they stripped and searched the corpses for valuables. They had proved themselves, and he did not begrudge them their joy. In the morning they would realize the peril to which they had been exposed, but for now, awash with exhilaration and relief, they deserved happiness. He sheathed his sword and went to light a fire.
They stirred just as dawn cracked across the horizon. No one had slept, too excited were they by their overwhelming victory, but Forrester had insisted they rest about the fires. The long march home would come with first light, and he was unwilling to risk lingering in the area.
‘How many, Dewhurst?’ Forrester asked as the sergeant walked over to him from the direction of the rebel bodies.
John Dewhurst, known as the Hawk by his yellow-coated charges, drove the butt end of his halberd into the dew-softened turf and leaned against it. ‘Baker’s dozen, sir.’
Forrester glanced towards the flint wall of the church, where the thirteen naked bodies had been arranged in a line. ‘All theirs?’
Dewhurst’s head nodded in short, staccato movements. ‘Aye, sir. Ours are all accounted for. Few scratches, but nowt that’ll snuff a man out, unless it turns bad.’
‘Good,’ Forrester said, turning away so that he was not caught smiling at the Hawk’s pecking. He scanned the makeshift encampment; the wisps from dowsed fires dancing with tobacco smoke, the rasp of steel being sharpened, the chatter of men as they broke their fast with rock-hard bread and skins of weak ale. He looked back at Dewhurst. ‘You have my thanks, Sergeant.’
‘Sir?’
‘Chopping that man,’ Forrester said.
Dewhurst wiped the red tip of his nose with a grubby sleeve. ‘You were doing well enough, sir. Know how to fight, an’ no mistake.’ He ventured a wry smile. ‘But squashing the bugger’s a new one on me, beggin’ your pardon, sir.’
‘I’ll thank you to mind your manners, Sergeant,’ Forrester replied sharply, before breaking into an amused snort as he patted the taut coat stretched over his midriff. ‘Though I confess it is not often that my size plays to my advantage.’ He watched the men as they made ready to march. ‘Fought like lions, Sergeant, did they not? Colonel Rawdon will be pleased.’
Dewhurst pecked the air. ‘Proud of ’em, sir. Still, experienced officers are hard to come by for new regiments. They learnt a few things.’
Forrester acknowledged the compliment with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Then we are each content with our night’s work.’
‘Long walk home then, sir?’ said Dewhurst as he jerked the halberd from the soil, using it like a shepherd’s crook as he walked away.
‘As soon as we might,’ Forrester returned. ‘The better part of valour is discretion.’ He sighed when Dewhurst turned to cast him a blank expression. ‘Henry the Fourth, Part I.’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘Let us be on the move.’
Southampton, Hampshire, 7 October 1643
The shouts were deafening. Norton had been summoned from his quarters in the tavern near the West Gate by a messenger saying only that Southampton’s disgruntled aldermen wished to meet with him. He had at once ridden out, but somehow the ordinary folk had got wind of the meeting and in moments a crowd had gathered. And they were baying for blood, clamouring to reach him as he dismounted at the steps of the Bar Gate. Near fifty of his troopers had escorted him, and they moved their mounts into a half-moon around the foot of the steps, hedging him as he met the party of dour city elders, who trundled down from the grand building. One of the aldermen held out a hand for Norton to shake and said something, but the din was overwhelming. Norton pulled an expression of apology and turned to face the crowd. ‘Hold, good people, please! Be at your peace!’
Captain Kovac was one of the protective horsemen, and he brought his bay round a fraction so that he could see Norton. ‘They will not shut their mouths, sir.’
‘I can see that, Wagner.’
Kovac sniffed the chill air into his bulbous nose. ‘You want me fix?’
Norton nodded. ‘Aye.’
Kovac drew a pistol from his saddle holster, primed and cocked it, and fired into the air. The pack collectively gasped and juddered back, people at the very rear stumbling under the sheer weight of retreating bodies. A small pall of white smoke slewed out over their heads. All fell silent.
Norton strode to a place just to the rear of his bristling cordon. ‘Now let me speak to your elders in a civilized manner,’ he called. He turned to the alderman who had extended his hand. ‘You summoned me here. What manner of grievance do you harbour that it must be laid at the feet of a soldier? You have a governor. What place is this where he is not given leave to govern?’
The alderman had seen at least seventy winters, Norton guessed, for his beardless face was wrinkled and lined. ‘It is just such governance that brings them hither, Colonel,’ he replied in a frail voice. ‘They rail against Murford’s hard ways.’
Norton shrugged. ‘These are hard times.’
‘And this is a Parliamentarian city,’ the alderman retorted, thin wisps of vapour curling from his mouth as he spoke. ‘It has been so from the start. Murford rules in the manner of an occupying enemy.’
‘He is a tyrant!’ a woman’s voice shrieked from the crowd. Immediately a chorus of similar cries went up, echoing against the houses and shops of the street, causing a hundred birds to flee into the grey clouds at once.
‘Aye!’ the alderman agreed, his aged voice becoming stronger now that he had the overt assent of the mob. ‘It is a tyrant I have sent my sons and grandsons to overthrow. We shall not have one here while they are gone.’
The mob cheered and jeered, and it surged, pulsing from back to front so that the foremost of its number collided with the chests of the horses. Those beasts whinnied and reared, a couple kicked, and the pulse waned, folding back on itself like a wave hitting rocks.
Norton turned back to look at the delegation. His regiment had been in Southampton for just two days, and he had busied himself with arranging supplies, writing notes to Westminster and plotting his designs upon the rest of the county. Yet mutterings had reached his ears of disgruntled citizens unhappy with Murford’s rough tactics. He had dismissed them, but perhaps, he reflected as the noise reached a deafening crescendo, the resentment was a more deep-rooted problem than he had assumed. He planted his hands on his hips. ‘Well?’
The alderman set hi
s jaw. ‘Murford’s excesses destroy this fine place as sure as any of the Cavaliers who might threaten us. He taxes us to the hilt to fund his revelry.’
‘Revelry?’
‘A banquet, for his own pleasure! He took the coin from our purses with menaces. Threats of plunder and violence.’
Another city elder came forwards, moving to his colleague’s side now that the die had been cast. ‘The villain pulled down the picture of Queen Bess from above Bar Gate!’ he decried with shaking fists. ‘He claimed this tribulation was Her Majesty’s own fault. For if her reformation had been prosecuted with true faith and vigour, our current strife would be avoided.’ The veins were visible on the man’s temples as he spoke. ‘I may be a Parliament man, sir, but I would never speak ill of so venerable a sovereign. No, Colonel, the scoundrel is rotten to his core.’
It was the coldest morning of the autumn so far, and the biting air made the skin itch about Norton’s cheeks and neck. It was all he could do not to fling away his gloves and tear at himself with fingernails. ‘And what would you have me do?’
‘Do, Colonel Norton?’ a new voice bellowed from atop the gate. ‘You’ll do nothing if you wish to remain within my walls.’
Norton looked up to see a short, heavy-jowled man. ‘Governor Murford, I was merely—’
‘Your men have spread out like the French Welcome,’ Peter Murford interrupted, ‘in homes and shops and taverns. There are horses stabled in our churches.’
‘And I thank you for it,’ Norton replied.
Murford’s fleshy cheeks trembled as he cleared his throat noisily. ‘You thank me by inciting revolt amongst my people?’
‘I do no such thing, sir!’ Norton retorted. ‘I came to speak with the aldermen, to take their words and messages back to London. Your people descended upon me like the locusts of Exodus.’
‘Pah!’ Murford exclaimed, waving a chubby fist in the air. ‘They are perfectly contented, sir.’
Norton gritted his teeth. ‘They seem perfectly discontented, sir.’
Murford’s little eyes raked across the angry faces ranged before them. ‘I do not believe such slander.’
‘Look for yourself, sir,’ Norton replied mercilessly. He cupped a hand to his ear. ‘Listen. A tide appears to rise against you, does it not?’
Murford had turned deathly pale and looked as though he might vomit over the Bar Gate’s rampart. ‘You are a rogue and a blackguard, sir. Your presence ignites the flames of dissent.’ He uncurled a fist, extending his forefinger to point accusingly at the red-haired colonel of horse. ‘No longer are your disreputable men welcome in this city, Norton. No longer, I say! I want you gone. The whole regiment. Out of here this very moment!’
It was then that Richard Norton had an epiphany. Hampshire was a lawless place. Godly towns like Southampton and Poole were counterbalanced by malignant hives like Winchester or Basing. The countryside in between was a dangerous frontier infested by brigands and deserters, patrolled only by smaller units such as his own, fighting petty wars for every crossroad, bridge and ford, every village, every road, hillock and copse. It pained Norton because he was a Hampshire man. His estates were at Southwick, his kin spread from the coast to the Downs, and he had long yearned to bring it under Parliament’s heel, for the good of the people. But how? He was free of Essex’s field army for the time being, able to impose his veteran horsemen upon the land, and yet he could never hope to build something permanent without a real base. A bridgehead from which to launch his private campaigns. But here, now, the opportunity had presented itself; it was as a lightning bolt to his mind, delivered by the hand of God Himself. He showed Murford his back, pacing the few yards to where his horse waited in the midst of the twitchy cavalry cordon. With the governor’s incensed oaths ringing in his ears, he took the reins from a gentleman trooper and clambered up into the saddle, wheeling the beast about to face the mob.
‘Would you have me go, good people?’ Norton bellowed. As he expected, the crowd screamed their opposition. He wrenched on the reins again, this time coaxing the horse from the protective line and back to the foot of the stone stairs. The aldermen scattered like starlings in the face of a cat, and Norton stared up at Murford, still standing upon the rampart. ‘They do not feel safe without me, it seems. Though is it the Cavaliers they fear, or their own governor?’
‘How dare you, sir—’ Murford blustered. ‘How dare you! Men!’ He looked left and right, seeking the assistance of his garrison. Half a dozen musketeers had come down from the Bar Gate and, though they responded smartly enough to the cry, the presence of so many of Norton’s cavalrymen kept their pieces firmly shouldered.
‘Sensible fellows,’ Norton observed.
Murford’s jowls shook violently. ‘To it, men!’ he persisted, pointing at Norton. ‘Take him!’
‘Try,’ another voice rose above the clamouring crowd. Norton looked to his right to see Wagner Kovac’s white-bearded face. The Croat’s icy gaze was locked upon the governor’s nervous men. ‘For love of God, try, I beg you.’
Norton grinned. ‘Captain Kovac yearns for a scuffle, as you can see. It has been a great many days since he killed a man.’ The musketeers seemed to baulk at the threat, some freezing where they stood, a couple edging back up the steps.
Murford raged on, crimson-faced. The elderly alderman took to the bottom step, positioning himself between Norton and Murford, his milk-white palms raised in supplication. ‘Colonel Norton. We would have you as our governor.’
‘By what right?’ Murford spluttered, thrusting his lank hair to the side of his forehead.
The alderman threw him a look of pity. ‘He is the power here, Murford. We need his strength.’
‘This—this is—Insurrection!’
‘He is the only man able to guarantee our safety,’ the alderman replied. He turned to Norton. ‘Will you answer our plea, sir?’
Richard Norton had forgotten the dreadful itch that so often made his life a misery. Instead his heart swelled and his mind soared. He thanked God, and offered a solemn nod. ‘I will.’
St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, 7 October 1643
‘You are a mulatto?’ Stryker murmured, trying to think of something to divert his interrogators from their infernal questions. He lay on his side. The air carried the tang of vomit, though he had become almost inured to it now. It astonished him how much damage mere seawater could do. Fassett had intimated that his hirelings had urinated – or worse – in the brackish, filthy concoction, which might have exacerbated the effect, but ultimately it was the salt that burned his innards and turned his guts to a mess of twisted anguish.
Sterne Fassett had brought a low stool into the room this time, and he perched on its edge, cradling the jug in his lap. ‘The man who stuck his pizzle in my bitch of a mother was a blackamoor. A sailor. I knew him not. And I hated her.’ His face split in amusement. ‘Perhaps that is why I am such a bastard.’
Stryker did not know how long it had been. He thought he had counted two days and nights, but he was too confused, too weakened, too agonized to know for sure.
Sterne Fassett had returned as promised. His obedient creatures, Squires and Cordell, had pinned Stryker again, though with increasing ease, and more of the foul liquid had been sent into Stryker’s stomach, searing him, purging him. More questions had come. He had railed at them in return, threatened their lives, to which the echoes of laughter had broken through his spasms like distant thunder. And then nothing. They had gone once more, leaving him crumpled and retching, passing hours with only the sound of his gargling chest and the crashing ocean for company. It was only now, after so many lonely hours, that they had paid him this most recent visit, and he had wanted to weep as the lock had clunked in the door.
He was as weak and brittle as dry leaves, unable to eat the food that was offered, and never able to quench his torturous thirst with the paltry amount of fresh water they had allowed. He knew the pattern, of course. They did not want him dead, not quickly, and seawate
r would kill a man in days if he did not dilute it with the fresh equivalent. So they offered him tiny amounts, enough to keep his body from shutting down altogether, yet never enough to slake the gnawing need that would slowly drive him mad. They were dragging the torment along, spinning it out like a mile-long thread, weakening their prisoner, crushing his spirit, until he would say anything to cut that thread and make the horror end. But he would not speak. They already knew why he had sailed to Scilly, but they did not know to which island he had been bound, and that thought sustained him in the cold and dark of his cell.
He tilted his head up to look at Fassett. ‘What happened to your nose?’
‘Whore-runner in St Giles.’
‘You refused to pay?’
‘Ha!’ Fassett barked. He shook his head. ‘I never pay. I was working a job for one of the fat bugger’s rivals. Visited him to . . . suggest . . . he move his operation elsewhere. In truth my employer fancied the look of some of the blubber-belly’s Winchester Geese.’ He licked his lips slowly. ‘Some juicier cunnies you’d be hard pressed to find, I’ll give him that.’
‘The fellow took exception?’ Stryker mumbled.
‘Of course!’ Fassett flicked the stubby nose, severed so unnaturally flat half-way down its length. ‘Came at me with a bleedin’ cleaver.’
‘And he now lies at the bottom of the Thames . . .’
Fassett fiddled with one of his few remaining teeth. ‘Along with a great many more.’ He slid off the stool so suddenly that Stryker flinched, causing him to smile. ‘Worry not, Captain. I do not intend to share my special claret with you today.’
A shiver of hope ran up Stryker’s spine. It was only when he looked up at the grinning Fassett that he knew the truth, and his pathetic gullibility made him sicker than any amount of the foul potion. ‘You damned liar.’
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 10