Stryker dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Because you are an agent for the King, sir.’
‘Preposterous,’ Webb blustered, turning away.
‘Hold,’ Stryker ordered, reaching out to grasp the turner’s elbow. He forcibly compelled the spy to come back to face him. ‘You are for the King, Master Webb, as am I. And I require your assistance.’
‘I do not know who you are—’ Webb stammered.
‘My name is Stryker.’
The wood-turner frowned suddenly. ‘The wool merchant? Too young.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. ‘And too alive.’
‘I am his son.’
Webb’s cheeks coloured. ‘My apologies. But your heritage does not make you Cavalier, any more than it makes you Roundhead.’
‘I have visited Thomas Rowe, the tapster at Harting,’ Stryker ventured. ‘He is an old friend of mine, and, as you know, one who shifts for the Crown. One of your brother spies. He sent me here. Told me you could help.’ He was rewarded by a flicker of recognition in Webb’s eyes. ‘I see that turns your wheels a touch.’
Webb seemed to be considering matters for a moment, but his face suddenly tightened and he shook himself free. ‘I have work to do, and—’
‘I grow tired of this, Master Webb,’ Stryker hissed, angry now. ‘If you speak plain with me, I will be on my way. If you do not, I’ll be forced to treat you more harshly.’ He saw Webb’s Adam’s apple bob as the man swallowed thickly. ‘Now mark me well. I possess something important . . . vital . . . to our mutual cause. I travel over these hills with it, and require guidance by one who knows the lie of the land. Thomas Rowe tells me you are such a one.’
Webb gnawed the inside of his mouth, but eventually he nodded. ‘Rowe is in the right of it.’
‘First, tell me of this town.’
‘Petersfield? Are you not from hereabouts?’
Stryker let his mind drift to his childhood home out on the rich pastures to the east of the town. The house was substantial and warm, built of flint and thatch beside the junction of the River Rother and its tributary, Tilmore Brook. Sheep grazed all day and he played in the river and in the trees and up on the chalky hills; he had never wanted it to end. But it had ended. ‘Not for many years, Master Webb.’
Webb considered his words for a moment. ‘It is a town divided. We had two members of the Parliament, and each sided with a different cause. That alone should tell you how frayed our old friendships have become.’ He rubbed his eyes as if the thought exhausted him. ‘Many in the marketplace will denounce a man for so much as a bawdy jest, such is their zeal, while others, like me, would have things put back to the way they were before the Puritan faction found their voice. Even our priest, a Godly man by the name of Benjamin Laney, has been driven out for his Laudian sympathies.’
Stryker nodded. Lisette would be sorry at the news. ‘Rowe told me as much. That is why I am here. It was Laney I had hoped to find.’
Webb shook his head. ‘Long gone, I regret to say.’
‘But what of soldiers, Master Webb? Are there rebels operating in the town?’
‘No, sir, not for several days, but they pass through.’ He spread his palms to show that he had no real answers. ‘You are safe enough for the moment, but I would not tarry if I were you.’
‘But where do I go? I would make for Oxford, but the roads through the Thames Valley are too dangerous. I must reach the nearest garrison of strength, so as to collect an escort for the remainder of my journey, and my guess thus far has been Winchester, but I seek your guidance on the matter.’ Stryker stepped closer. ‘Tell me, sir, is it Winchester, or should I look elsewhere? Alresford? Or further afield. Reading, perhaps?’
‘Basing.’
That caught Stryker by surprise. ‘Basing House?’
‘The King’s forces took Reading at the beginning of the month,’ Webb said, ‘but I hear Waller is at Windsor with the beginnings of a new army.’
‘Too close for comfort,’ Stryker said, imagining a vast enemy horde mustering so near to the Royalist garrison.
‘That is what I would suggest. We hold Winchester and Alresford, but the latter garrison is too small and will offer you no help, while Winchester is under constant threat from Southampton. Colonel Norton has been elevated to governor there, and he has busied himself in the spreading of his influence. Go to Basing; send a messenger to Oxford. If what you carry is so vital, they will dispatch men to escort you back.’
Stryker considered the advice. It seemed reasonable enough, but he was unwilling to abandon his original plan so readily. ‘Winchester is but twenty miles from here. It is really so fraught with risk?’
Webb shrugged. ‘Try it. Get yourself a fast mount and chance your arm. But I would wager a great deal that you would not cover the distance without running into Norton’s troops.’
Stryker blew out his cheeks. If Webb considered it a dangerous proposition for a lone rider, then a heavily laden wagon escorted by eleven people on foot would find the journey impossible.
‘Why,’ Webb went on, ‘his men were here just ten days ago.’
‘Norton’s?’ Stryker asked. ‘They strike this far from Southampton?’
‘Aye. His force is predominantly cavalry. Such men move swiftly, but I’m sure I do not need to tell you that. Besides, they were in search of a particular man.’
‘A spy, no doubt.’
Webb nodded. ‘An officer out of Basing. He carried a warrant calling for the raising of the county for the Cavaliers. Norton got wind of it.’ Webb’s creased brow furrowed deeply. ‘I am wretched to confess that he was taken here, in my very own shop.’
‘How did they discover him?’
Webb looked at his shoes, evidently crest-fallen. ‘I know not.’
Stryker thought about the implication of the spy’s capture. ‘If the marquess is rabble-rousing, then he makes his house a target. Parliament will wish to bring him to heel as a matter of honour.’
‘Either way,’ Webb said, sensing Stryker’s reticence in trusting his advice, ‘I would yet recommend you make for it in the first instance. You may pick up men. And it is quite the haven.’
Stryker offered his hand for Webb to shake and made for the door. ‘I was there a year ago, Master Webb,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘And I can tell you it is more palace than fortress.’
‘The marquess’s man Forrester told me they have spent a good deal of time and money on new defences,’ Webb replied, moving back to his lathe.
Stryker already had his hand on the iron handle, but he let it fall. ‘Hold, Master Webb.’ He turned to regard the wood turner. ‘Repeat that name if you would.’
‘The marquess’s man?’ George Webb asked, frowning. ‘Why, Forrester was his name. Lancelot Forrester.’
Roger Tainton pulled the knife free. Even in the darkness he could see blood welling like spilt ink over the flesh, coursing over the curves of the neck in black rivulets to bloom on the sheets. The woman lay on her back in the feather bed, her sightless eyes wide, straining in her final panicked moments, glaring at the beams. Tainton’s blade had severed her windpipe even as she slept, so that her wakefulness had been brief and violent. Her eyes had snapped open as he pushed the wickedly keen steel through skin and tissue, she had bucked and writhed as he felt the tip crunch against her neck bones, and her lips had worked silently as he held it fast, pinned deep, waiting for the life to seep from her body. It had taken longer than he had expected, and he had prayed the husband would wallow in his slumber.
He slid away from the newly made corpse and wiped the knife on the edge of the bed. It was a good weapon, he reflected. A long, thin length of double-edged steel, with a thick medial ridge for strength and a fluted, octagonal grip that was carved from oak. He had relieved a pilgrim of it following a short altercation on the road near the border between Sussex and Hampshire, exchanging his weary nag for the traveller’s fresh pony to boot. It had allowed him to press on through the wooded escarpments and grassy slopes of the Downs in the wa
ke of his quarry, tracking their distinct wheel ruts in the soft earth but always staying a suitable distance behind. In the hours after his breathless flight from Pagham, he had thought to ride to Chichester in order to raise the alarm. But his mind had turned the consequences of such an act like a plough through soil, digging up images of a city mired in its own civic and regimental politics, of officers suspicious of a newcomer with a seemingly tall tale, and a governor who, even if he agreed to grant Tainton an audience, would not necessarily be disposed to assist. Tainton had, therefore, resolved to follow Stryker himself.
The pursuit from the Sussex coast had taken him up into the South Downs, climbing the ancient bridleways and weaving through blocks of dense woodland that had once been the haunt of wolves. He had traced the route of his enemies along the summit of a high ridge and down a steeply winding hill, finishing in a sleepy backwater named South Harting. There he had watched as Stryker visited a taphouse, and then the whole group took the north-westerly road back into the wild expanse, following its meandering journey past stream and valley and copse, until finally descending into this unassuming little place set deep in a depression in the hills. But it was here, in the fields skirting the town, that the trail had suddenly gone cold.
He eased himself off the bed. Mercifully, the husband yet slept, and he padded smartly round to the far side. He glanced out of the window through which he had climbed, hoping it would not rain, for his boots and their relentlessly noisy spurs had been left out there below the sill. He could see the buildings of High Street, their roofs silhouetted against a bright moon in a cloudless sky. It was another cold night, another step towards a bitter winter. He was glad at the thought that soon this ordeal would be over and he could return to London and her great and welcoming hearths.
Tainton rested the knife point just above the sleeping man’s right eye. He held it there, poised and still in a steady hand, watching the fellow’s chest rise and fall with each gentle snore. His free hand he slithered over the man’s mouth. The eyelids shot up, head jerking forth, but Tainton pressed firmly on the man’s face so that he could neither move nor scream. He saw the knife too, fear lighting up his gaze, and immediately he was still.
‘Have a care,’ Tainton warned, still pushing down upon the man’s lips. ‘I will remove my hand if you pledge to remain still and quiet.’
The man shifted his terrified stare from the blade to Tainton. He wiggled his brow in an evident attempt to acquiesce.
‘Good,’ Tainton said. He slid his hand away, though the knife remained. ‘Stay on your back, there’s an obedient fellow. Sit up quick and there’ll be metal in your brain before you can close your eye. Understood?’
The man nodded mutely.
‘You are George Webb, are you not? Wood-turner.’
Webb nodded, eyes on the knife.
‘And you are a Royalist spy,’ Tainton added. It was a guess, but why else would Stryker have paid the man a visit? ‘Come now, sir, I haven’t all night.’ Tainton had followed the captain and his languorous sergeant down from the hills, and witnessed Stryker sneak into the wood-turner’s premises. When he had returned to fetch Skellen from the tavern across the road, he carried no items one might find in such a place. No boxes or flasks or anything turned by an experienced hand. It was information Stryker sought, Tainton felt sure of it.
‘Who are you?’ Webb managed to blurt.
‘No concern of yours.’ Tainton put a hand to his cowl and push it back. He waited while the prone man absorbed the face that peered down upon him. The featureless skin, the hairless skull, the ice-blue gaze. ‘Now, you are a Royalist spy, sir. Do not waste your breath in the denial. Speak plain, answer my questions, and you will see salvation this night.’
Webb’s ashen face quivered as he nodded assent. ‘Ask, sir, please, and be gone, I beg you.’
‘I follow a man named Stryker. My horse threw a shoe, and when I had seen it repaired, he was gone.’ He turned the blade slowly, letting the moonlight skim along the medial ridge. ‘You saw him earlier this day. Where did he go?’
Webb swallowed thickly. ‘N—north, sir.’
‘North?’ Tainton echoed. He frowned at the idea, feeling the antagonism of the taut skin around his forehead and temples. North took him towards a cluster of Parliamentarian towns. ‘To what end? What destination?’
‘Basing House, sir.’
Tainton gazed into the wood-turner’s bulging eyes. ‘Basing?’ It took a moment for him to register the implication. Once behind the Marquess of Winchester’s walls, he would be difficult to dig out. But they would not leave the gold there for the marquess and his family to plunder. They would look to move out for Oxford as soon as the way was safe. Tainton could not stop Stryker reaching Basing, but he could certainly arrange matters for when the one-eyed thief dared to leave its protective embrace. ‘Where is the nearest Parliamentarian garrison?’
‘To Basing?’ Webb asked. ‘Farnham Castle, sir.’
Tainton nodded, finally contented after the brief loss of his quarry. ‘Then it is to Farnham with me, Master Webb. And you have my thanks.’ He stood. ‘Now I will set you upon the path of salvation, as promised. In that, you may join your goodwife.’
George Webb looked sideways then, staring at the woman by at his side. Even in the darkness he could see the blood staining her throat and breast, running into the sheets and seeping into the compacted feathers beneath them. A look of sheer horror crawled over his face, his neck convulsed as though he would vomit, and he drew breath to scream. Tainton stabbed him twice in the chest, forcing the dagger up between the ribs so that the air immediately hissed from the wound. Webb’s jaw worked frantically, but no sound came. Tainton yanked at the blade, which required substantial effort and a knee in the turner’s midriff. Eventually it slid free. He left the man to flounder in his own blood beside the corpse of his woman, and climbed out through the window, all the while thanking God. The trail was cold no longer.
CHAPTER 18
Farnham Castle, Surrey, 22 October 1643
Colonel Samuel Jones, a thin, elegant and pinch-faced man in his late thirties, stood in the courtyard of Farnham Castle. He was watching his greencoats as they ran through manoeuvres taken from the manuals of pike and shot. Sergeants and corporals bawled oath-laden orders as the tight squads pivoted around them, pikes were charged and shouldered by turns, and muskets snapped crisply from one position to the next. He was proud of them, for they were a good, solid, loyal body of men. But more importantly, he was proud of their home. The castle was set high on a wooded hill overlooking the clustered houses far below, and it was a supremely defensible place, but Jones also delighted in the ease with which he could keep his fighting men from the corrupting influence of their followers. Society’s dregs. The hunched, foul-mouthed crones who attached themselves to the soldiers, turning regiments into itinerant towns. There would be children too, the sly, filthy little urchins whelped on their unholy unions. An army in the field was a melting pot of disease and sin as far as Jones was concerned. The thought made him shudder.
He waved to a young officer – a strapping, golden-haired youth who was overseeing the drill – privately noting the shapely curve of the lad’s calves. When the officer moved out of sight, he glanced sideways at the fearsome creature who had come to his beloved garrison. ‘I cannot spare the men, Mister Tainton.’
The man at his right flank wore a heavy cloak, the hood permanently drawn up to conceal his head. ‘What do you mean,’ the man grunted, blue eyes gleaming from within the sepulchral depths, ‘you cannot spare the men?’
Jones produced a handkerchief from his sleeve with a flourish and wiped the running tip of his red nose. The afternoon was cold, and he stamped his feet. ‘I mean precisely what I say, sir.’
‘Your corporal tells me you have four companies of foot within these walls.’
Jones twisted to his other side, where a meek-looking fellow in the regiment’s distinctive green coat peered back at him through thick
-lensed spectacles. ‘My corporal has no business discussing garrison strength with a stranger.’
‘No stranger, Colonel Jones. I am an agent sent direct from Whitehall, on the business of Pym and of God.’
‘And I,’ Jones retorted icily, ‘am commander of Farnham Castle, sir. I may discuss matters with you, but my minions may not.’ He rounded on the corporal. ‘Get out of my sight, Ingram, before I have the skin flogged from your spine.’ He wiped his nose again as he waited for the ashen-faced subordinate to skulk away, then looked at the man who had introduced himself as Roger Tainton. ‘Now, as I have said, I cannot spare any men for this escapade.’
‘Escapade?’ Tainton spluttered indignantly. ‘There is a large consignment of gold and silver within Basing House, Colonel. It is not a few trinkets, sir, but a hoard. It is my commission to secure said hoard for the Parliament, and I require your assistance.’
Jones shook his head. ‘I cannot do it, Mister Tainton. Not, and with the utmost respect, for mere rumours spread by men I do not even know.’
Tainton seemed to bridle at that. ‘My masters will—’
‘Your masters,’ Jones broke across him harshly, ‘may do as they wish, for my master has ordered me to gather my full strength.’ He wagged a long finger in Tainton’s face. ‘Not diminish it.’ The very idea was absurd as far as he was concerned. ‘A lone rider, sir, gallops into my castle and orders me . . . a full colonel . . . to simply hand him my force so that he might traipse down to an enemy stronghold and dash them against its walls. I find it astonishing that you would even ask, Mister Tainton.’
‘Not dash, Colonel, not dash! It is not Basing House I seek to attack, but a small party hidden within. That quarry will not tarry, sir. They will move out from Basing any day, I have no doubt. I simply require enough men to accost them when they take to the road.’
Jones shook his head. ‘You are not heeding my words, sir. No soldier leaves this garrison.’
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 28