‘Never been m’sen,’ replied Yates, ‘but I’m sure it’s a fine place. And you’re a proper Christian?’
Roger Tainton tugged down the sides of his cap again. ‘Catholic as Maffeo Barberini.’ He offered a wink. ‘Almost.’
‘Ha!’ Yates cackled again. ‘Very good, Tom.’
‘That is why I am here, in truth,’ Tainton said. ‘The country is not safe for a man of the old ways.’
Yates hawked up a wad of phlegm and deposited it noisily into a tiled gutter than ran through the room’s centre. ‘There ain’t nowhere outside m’ native Yorkshire that is safe for God-fearing men like us, young Tom. That’s the grievous truth of it.’ He crossed himself as he watched the spittle mingle with a fresh stream of horse piss and float away, a white raft on a yellow river. ‘Basing Castle’s not just a bastion for loyal men, it is a bastion for pure believers. The rebellion is not kind to the old religion, and that’s the nub of it. Why, they say the French ambassador were lately at Westminster. His confessor, an Englishman, was arrested and will shortly be quartered at Tyburn.’ Perkin Yates stared into the middle distance as his eyes became glassy. ‘No, sir, it does not serve to be a Catholic with a Parliament so rife with demons as ours.’ He blinked suddenly, staring hard at Tainton. ‘You’ve come to the right place, Tom.’
Roger Tainton felt sick. He closed his eyes so that Perkin Yates assumed he was giving thanks. Instead he prayed for gold.
Cowdrey’s Down, Hampshire, 25 October 1643
The horsemen trotting along the crest of the bare hill could see the clay-red sprawl of the great house below. Its structures and its walls, its crenellated towers and modest outbuildings, cluttered the landscape, nestled like a den of vipers between the plateau of Basing Park and the broad River Loddon. Basing House and its adjacent farm, split by a road of churned earth that had been barricaded at either end to form a secure defensive ring, appeared more formidable a site than Wagner Kovac had ever imagined. He had gone to Farnham with the purpose of gaining an infantry arm for his core mounted force, but always he had envisaged his ultimate assault would be against a palatial facade with grand memories and little substance. Now, as he cantered at the head of his armoured column, he understood that a detachment of greencoats would not have sufficed, regardless of the pig-headed Colonel Jones’s obstinacy.
Cowdrey’s Down loomed over Basing to the north-west, the Loddon carving its glistening route at its foot so that Kovac’s view of the fortress took in the busy agricultural complex first, then the two houses beyond. A stone wall encompassed the estate, higher than he had imagined, and even from this distance he could pick out the black scars where loopholes had been scored in the brickwork for defensive musketry. On the north side, where the ground sloped down towards the river, a second wall was set with formidable towers.
‘Fortunate Colonel Jones declined,’ a lieutenant, face bisected by the single sliding nasal bar of a helmet in the Dutch style, shouted over the rumble of hooves.
Kovac glanced right to shoot the man a rueful smile. ‘Ja. We’d have failed.’ He narrowed his eyes as the wind began to swirl into their faces. Tainton’s plan was truly the only viable option open to him. He did not like sharing glory with such a man, but without Tainton he would be forced to return to Southampton with nothing to report but failure. Norton would immediately strip him of his majority, and ignominy would follow.
The wind was strong up on the hill, bitter against the skin of the horsemen, who wore helmets with vertical metal bars that would protect against a sword slash but not the elements. They shrunk into their horses’ necks as best they could, pinching closed their mouths, breathing in shallow fashion through the nose, watching for the movements of the trooper in front when the wind prevented them from discerning shouted orders. Kovac stood in his stirrups, the pain in his thigh searing from groin to knee, reminding him of why he had come to this cursed place, but he kept his nerve and waved his charges on. They had languished at Farnham for three days, these warriors, and he understood the irascible humours that built in a man forced into such lethargy. Mutterings of disgruntlement had begun to be heard, fights had punctuated the evenings as troopers and greencoats clashed in angry exchanges, and he had resolved to take his men away from the castle while he waited for his part of the plan to swing into action. They wanted to see Basing – Loyalty House, as it was known by the Cavaliers – and Kovac, in the end, had acquiesced. They would hack out, terrorize the local villages, pound the highways and infest the lanes. They would eradicate the cobwebs of inertia and parade before their enemy, daring him to send his own horse-borne warriors to challenge them.
Kovac twisted back to look at his thundering troop. They were resplendent in their bristling metal, creatures of slaughter, half man and half beast, martial, terrifying, and beautiful for all that. Some had curved sabres at their sides, others long, single-edged cleavers. Many were scarfed at waists and chests, and some had tawny ribbons tied at the shoulder or wrist. They were the colours of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Lord General of Parliament’s armies, and he knew they revelled in the association, for they had earned it under Stapleton’s command at Newbury Fight. But it mattered not to Wagner Kovac, as long as they rode beneath his banner this day. He looked to his cornet, a young lad with a rebel heart and a wealthy father, cantering clear at the wing, gleaming in black and gold armour worth more than his steed, the black flag snapping madly above his head. A fitting standard for so strong a unit.
It started to rain. The droplets came at them like a volley of miniature bullets from the west, sleet-cold and stinging. Kovac dipped his helm into the torrent, letting the polished metal take the brunt, and gave the order to wheel about.
Stryker was with Forrester on the flat summit of one of the Great Gatehouse’s imposing corner towers. They were looking north, over the tiled apex of the Great Barn, squinting through perspective glasses borrowed from the marquess at the cavalrymen on the crest of Cowdrey’s Down. Save for the smattering of saplings in the park to the south and in spite of the rain, the view was clear all the way past the river and up to the escarpment that was now full of horses and men. They leaned into the rampart, propping elbows on the crenellated masonry, and trained the glasses from rider to rider, officer to trooper, reading the terrain and deployments as only a veteran could.
‘What are they about?’ Forrester said through the side of his mouth.
Stryker had lowered the glass to wipe the lens on the hem of his coat. It took time, for he wore a full-length buff-coat over the top, purloined by Forrester from Paulet’s stores, but he was in no mood to grumble. The oiled hide kept him warm and dry in the stinging drizzle. ‘Taking in the view.’ He raised the leather tube again. ‘Gauging the worth of an attack.’
He watched as the Roundheads began to file away, noting the tawny sashes that had been the Earl of Essex’s mark, though they were now almost ubiquitous with any rebel unit in the south. A cornet of horse carried the colour on a hefty staff, and Stryker could see that it was black, but that hardly differentiated them in a war when new regiments, even whole armies, seemed to be raised and deployed with every passing season.
It was only when Forrester muttered a soft curse that he looked round at his friend. ‘What is it? What do you see?’
Lancelot Forrester swore again. He kept the glass up, as though it had been nailed to his eye, his mouth flapping like a gasping fish in the hold of a boat. ‘I know that colour. It is Kovac.’ Now he lowered the glass. He looked at Stryker. ‘It is Wagner Kovac.’
‘Norton’s man?’
‘He is not here for Basing,’ Forrester whispered darkly. ‘He is here for me.’
CHAPTER 20
Farnham Park, Surrey, 1 November 1643
Beneath the batteries of Farnham Castle, on the sprawling expanse of green parkland identified as the long-awaited Parliamentarian rendezvous, Sir William Waller, supreme commander of the newest army in Britain, reviewed his troops. It had rained overnight, leaving the g
round sodden and the air chilly and vaporous, and he walked before the assembled throng swathed in a long, fur-lined cloak, his wide-brimmed hat tilted slightly over his face. Before him was arrayed a formidable force, units clustered in dense blocks, their colours bobbing on the breeze.
‘We hear Hopton is at Andover, Sir William,’ Colonel Jonas Vandruske said. The tall Dutchman held his own hat beneath his armpit so that he could sweep a gloved hand through his short fair hair as he talked.
‘They found no resistance in Dorset, then,’ Waller said, pausing to look up at into the colonel’s dark blue eyes. ‘Do they march?’
Vandruske shook his head. ‘Not thus far, sir. They muster around Salisbury and Andover in the main.’ He shrugged. ‘Some are at Winchester, of course.’
Waller resumed his progress. ‘Then we have time. We must strike Sir Ralph before he can coordinate his efforts. Smash through Winchester, drive into his army at Andover, and push him westward until we may force his hand in the field.’
‘You would risk open battle?’
‘After Roundway?’ Waller shot back wryly.
The Dutchman coloured a little, the large scar running horizontally across his cheek appearing paler against the blushing skin. ‘No, sir. That is not what I meant. Not at all. Simply that our army, for all its size, has, at its core, divisions from the Trained Bands.’
‘They’ll fight if I ask them, Jonas,’ Waller replied, though he felt far from sure. Did he really think that they would fight, or was some part of him driven by a desire to exceed the feats of his superior and nemesis, the Earl of Essex? The Lord General had relieved Gloucester and held Newbury with an army of hastily raised apprentices, and Waller would be damned if he could not match the achievement with exploits of his own. He turned his head to the massed ranks to prevent Vandruske reading the concern in his eyes. ‘I mean to wait another day or two. More men and arms come to Farnham, and I would not leave them behind purely for haste.’
Vandruske grunted agreement. ‘And the families of our new city folk are sending a train of provisions, I understand.’
‘We will be well supplied, I am pleased to say,’ Waller muttered, though in truth he was wondering what exactly he would face in the coming days. Rumours filtered from the north that the armies of Essex, Rupert, Byron, Newcastle and the Fairfaxes were again in the field, while in the south Richard Norton’s men were engaging with Lord Crawford’s Cavaliers. And in front of Waller, not thirty miles due west, Baron Hopton’s forces were gathering like a winter storm. The nation was in a state of flux. The uncertainty made his heart race and his chest feel tight.
Waller had led his army out of Windsor two days earlier, the bristling column trundling through the countryside like a vast serpent, its spine made of men and horses and wagons and artillery, baggage carts, women, children and supply wagons. En route they had met up with more detachments from his own regiment, and when his ranks had almost completed their growth, they had streamed south into Farnham town. There was not the space in the castle to house such a multitude, and so the general had named the wide park as the place where they would muster. Now, with a straight back and swelling pride, Waller walked slowly across their front rank. There were redcoats and bluecoats, yellows and whites, the green-coated garrison from Farnham itself, and various gentlemen troopers in their own civilian clothes. The metal of helmets and pikes, muskets and swords, ornate pommels, swirling hilts and spinning spurs glinted in the weak sunlight. Huge squares of taffeta hung from poles above the infantry brigades while smaller cornets flapped to mark out cavalry, each with its own colour and devices: stars, diamonds, circles, fearsome beasts, tracts of Latin, biblical verses. Waller now commanded sixteen troops of horse, eight full companies of dragoons and thirty-six companies of foot. Almost five thousand men in all. In addition, he had ten large fieldpieces, drawn stoically by teams of harnessed working horses, and half a dozen cases of drakes, enclosed wagons of war with guns protruding from their loopholes that were capable of deadly fire in open terrain. And there was a large cache of black powder, though it was kept well away from the main carnival of colours, escorted by bluecoats armed with firelocks, for the handling of lighted match near barrels of powder was sheer suicide. Waller shuddered privately at the thought of an errant spark.
‘Sir?’ Colonel Vandruske prompted.
Waller smiled sadly. ‘I was reflecting upon the safety of our powder train. Baron Hopton fell afoul of an explosion after Lansdown Fight.’
Vandruske’s face creased sourly. ‘A pity it did not put an end to him.’
‘Have a care, sir,’ Waller snapped brusquely. ‘Sir Ralph may oppose me in war, but he remains my dearest friend.’
‘My apologies, Sir William,’ the Dutchman said, not sounding entirely contrite. ‘Thoughtless of me. Yet you must soon engage him.’
Waller walked on steadily, nodding to Colonel Jones, commander of the Farnham greencoats, who stood at the head of his men, their white banner draped from a pole behind him. The thought of fighting Hopton again weighed heavily upon his mind. ‘I must shift for my conscience, and he must shift for his,’ he said eventually. ‘And we will be friends once more, when this lamentable business is done.’
‘Sir William!’ an officer shimmering in blackened armour astride a huge black stallion called down from his perch. He was positioned at the head of a dense block of heavy cavalry.
Waller beckoned to the horseman, stifling the image of jousting knights that his mind had conjured. ‘Sir Arthur! Well met! Fare you well?’
Sir Arthur Heselrige was the forty-two-year-old Baronet of Noseley and the commander of Waller’s Horse. A staunch Puritan, firebrand critic of the king, and good friend of Waller, he had led a regiment of cuirassiers since the beginning of the war, seen them distinguish themselves at Lansdown, receive a shattering rout at the disaster on Roundway Down, and now, with the grace of God and despite injuries received on that fateful day, had somehow made the Farnham muster with a reborn force of which he could be proud. He let his mount walk slowly out of the line. ‘Well indeed, Sir William, well indeed.’
‘And the leg?’
Heselrige was a lean, spare man with long auburn hair and a full moustache. He was noted for his irascibility, but now, patting his plate-caged thigh gingerly, he flashed a brilliant smile of small white teeth. ‘Festered. Blood went bad, I’m fearful to report, and it stank some, I don’t mind telling! But it healed, thank King Jesus.’
‘It is providence keeps you breathing, sir.’
Heselrige nodded. ‘Providence and proper armour.’
Waller smiled. ‘It pays to ride to battle in an iron shell.’
‘I was shot thrice at Roundway, Sir William, and all bounced clean away. It was only when the craven malignants cut my horse from beneath me that they caused harm.’
‘And how are your dashing lobsters?’ Waller asked, deliberately employing the term the common soldiery used for the heavy cavalry, so encased were they.
Heselrige grinned again. ‘Pious, brave and eager to follow William the Conqueror.’
Waller touched a finger to his hat. ‘Touché, Sir Arthur.’ He noticed another horseman rein in just behind the leader of his heavy cavalry. The man looked to be an officer, for a voluminous orange scarf was tied about his waist, but he only wore the accoutrements of the harquebusier – simple plate on back and breast, thick hide beneath, and a three-barred pot on his head. ‘You appear to have a cuckoo in the nest, Colonel Heselrige.’
Heselrige glanced back briefly. ‘This man sought an audience with you, General, but was denied. He came to find me in your stead. He has a message of some import, sir.’
Waller stared at the horseman, who removed his helmet to reveal a face pulpy from a legacy of pox, and a white beard tainted by yellowish streaks. His eyes were startlingly bright, almost mocking. ‘I see you are not one of mine, sir, for you wear the colour of His Excellency, the Lord General.’
The horseman slid a hand instinctively to his
broad scarf. ‘My regiment fought with him at Newbury, sir. Under Sir Philip Stapleton.’
Waller mothered his simmering annoyance, glancing at a nearby aide. ‘Get him another, Andrews. Blue or yellow, I care not which.’ He looked back at the harquebusier. ‘Sir Arthur evidently considered your message worthy of the telling. But first,’ he said as the man urged his horse forwards, ‘who the devil are you?’
‘My name is Wagner Kovac, sir. Major, Colonel Richard Norton’s Horse.’
‘He was a clerk,’ General Sir William Waller said as the four men passed, on foot, by the gently swaying corpse dangling from a gnarled oaken bough. ‘From my own regiment, no less. A good man, so I thought. Regrettable.’
Major Wagner Kovac was at his side, staring at the purple-faced clerk as the rope softly creaked with his weight. ‘What was his offence, General?’
‘Mutiny,’ Waller said. He glanced up at the body of the man he had that morning condemned, a lesson in leadership for the others. ‘The inactivity irks them, the weather enrages them. It was always thus.’
‘We must watch the Trained Bands in that vein, Sir William,’ Colonel Vandruske muttered. ‘They do not relish leaving London.’
‘Mutineers, the lot,’ Sir Arthur Heselrige, heavy-footed in his jangling armour, added sourly. It was at his insistence that they had convened this meeting away from prying eyes and flapping ears.
Kovac grunted. ‘In my country we—’
‘And where exactly,’ Waller interrupted, ‘is your country, Major Kovac?’
‘Croatia, sir.’
Waller raised his brow inquisitively. ‘You sound rather Germanic, sir. I spent some time thereabouts, many years back. Fought for the Venetians first, then served with Vere in the Palatinate.’
‘Father was Carniolan,’ Kovac said. ‘I spent much time there, though Croatia is my heart’s home.’
Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 31